


Rest, Sad Eyes

by ElspethRoe



Category: Sense and Sensibility (1995), Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
Genre: Alan Rickman Tribute, Emotional Wounding, Eventual Romance, F/M, Guilt, Healing, Infertility, Marianne Centric, Marriage, Married Life, Non-Linear Narrative, Romance, Slow Burn, introspective, patience - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2019-07-15 06:24:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 73,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16057364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElspethRoe/pseuds/ElspethRoe
Summary: Weep you no more, Sad FountainsWhat need you flow so fast?Marianne Dashwood was born to an extraordinary fate.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, Lovelies!
> 
> Well, it's been a while, but I'm finally jumping back into the Fanfiction game. I just want to say first, that I am not Jane Austen. Second, I want to say that while this is meant to be a blend of both the book and the 1995 movie, it will probably lean a little more toward the movie. I was first exposed to Jane Austen when I was seven. My mom made me watch the Sense & Sensibility movie, although I wouldn't have put up near as stubborn a fight had I known Snape would be in it. I've been in love with Alan Rickman since I was a child, and watching that movie made me fall head over heels for Jane Austen too. So now I'm here, trying to step into shoes that are way too big for me to fill. This story is very Marianne centric, because I feel like neither the novel nor the movie gives enough credit to her hurt or her healing. Heartbreak like that....well, let's just say I've been there and done that, and that it's not pretty. I wanted to explore how her past heartbreak would affect her courtship and eventual marriage, and how intimidating I imagine her new and much older husband would have been, whether he meant to be or not.
> 
> I so desperately hope you'll enjoy my little ditty, and please, PLEASE leave a comment. I LOVE them.
> 
> All the best,
> 
> Roe

A bride stands alone, awaiting her husband on their wedding night.

 *** 

_Laces, pulled matter-of-factly into place as she stares at the woman who meets her gaze in the mirror.  Elinor stands behind her, tightening her corset, then placing careful pins in her hair._

_Elinor, who is married.  Elinor, who is in love.  Elinor, who counts Colonel Brandon as one of her dearest friends._

_Elinor, who calls him the kindest and best of men, and whose words have never been truer._

_Oh God, she watches still more color leech from her already ashen face, and for a moment she is very afraid that the corset will force the contents of her stomach from her._

_Colonel Brandon, and who is the woman she stares at in her mirror on the morning of her wedding day?_

_A stranger, being dressed in white._

_Oh God._

_***_  

The room is large, and the room is silent, save for the gentle crackling of the fire.

The maid has left, only the shadow cast by the candles to keep her company now, and her eyes wonder to the ceiling as she imagines the stars stretched above the candle-bathed, golden expanse that meets her gaze. 

The fire before her, the bed on her left.

_The bed._

There are chairs before the fire, one that looks old and well-loved, and another that seems never to have been sat upon, almost a perfect match to its elder, but not quite.  A small table to accompany them.  A modest shelf of books to one side of the hearth, and another near the bed.

And a window that she knows looks out on the great stretch of land that she must now call home, though she cannot see it now, for the dark.

The room is silent, until there is a knock at the door.

 ***

_Her whole body aches._

_The fever has gone from her now, has returned her senses to her and ceased leeching the life from her, but she remains pale and weak, and reclining on the settee in the cottage parlor grows stale quickly._

_Her breaths are still shallow, shaky things.  Her legs are exhausted by the time they carry her up the stairs for the night._

_And Elinor and Mama, they are busy.  She knows this, knows that they cannot possibly spend every moment with her, but the books here…she has read them, and what is worse, she has read them with Willoughby._

_They are no comfort to her now._

_Margaret is far too full of life to be bothered to sit quietly with her sister, Marianne is incapable of going for a stroll of any duration, and so her days are passed slowly, and with little color._

_Until Colonel Brandon comes calling._

_***_

She forces her trembling hands into stillness as she calls out a soft _‘Come in.’_

Who is she, to grant him entrance to his own chamber?

But she cannot turn ‘round and look. 

A bride on her wedding night, and all she can do is knit and unknit her fingers, studying the lines of her knuckles in the dancing candlelight, avoiding both the mirror, and the sound of the opening, then closing door behind her at all costs. 

_His house is very large, and this room seems as though it has swallowed her whole._

There are footsteps, and there is a great, writhing knot in her belly.

 _God help her, she is Marianne Brandon now.  Has sworn herself to be so at the church only hours ago._  

He is so quiet behind her.  His steps are all she can hear, and even they are soft, muted things, growing nearly silent once he reaches the large carpet before the fire, fading into only vague shiftings of his weight.  She can just make him out from the corner of her eye, and he seems utterly unbothered by her presence as tends to the fire as though the servants have done it wrong, then pours himself a small, crystal glass of some warm, brown liquid that she thinks her father used to drink. 

She does not want to look at him.

He sits before the fire, and does not look at her.

But he sighs, and at the sound she cannot help but look, because he sounds tired, sounds warm like the fire.  He sounds like everything she is not; steady, and calm, and gentle, and perhaps because she is incapable of feeling any of those things just now, she finds that she must see him before she will believe that he can.

He is in his shirtsleeves, she sees as she allows her head to turn only a fraction.  In his shirtsleeves and sitting comfortably in the worn, large armchair by the fire, his glass in his hand, and still he is not looking at her.  He is looking into the flames with that studying look he wears so often on his face, and in that moment, she wonders just what it is that he sees.

_If he turns that look on her, just what will he see?_

She takes a deep, trembling breath, lets it out in a long sigh to match his.  She cannot stand here forever; she is so tired, she does not trust her legs to hold her.

So she goes to him.  Does not look at him.  Keeps her eyes fixed on the glowing fire.

The second chair, she knows, is for her.

 ***

_The first day, she sits on the settee with her spine forced ramrod straight, hands perfectly still in her lap, and she cannot bear to look at him._

_He sits across from her in his riding boots and coat, and her eyes dart around the room to find every little thing that is out of place._

_A book that she has tried these many days to read, but cannot._

_Margaret’s abandoned sewing._

_The blanket that Mama uses to smother her with in the evenings, for fear of a night chill latching onto her._

_She has no urge to pick them up, to make the room more presentable.  She is pale and weak from a fever that she caught by walking in the rain, and she_ can’t _look at him, because she last time she did was to thank him for saving her life._

_After everything._

_What does a little mess matter, when she remembers the numb, cold sensation of an icy rain almost drowning her, the smell of him surrounding her on all sides?_

_They fall quickly silent after he asks after her health, her happiness.  He glances at the book.  Shakespeare._

_Does he expect her to tell him about it?  To tell him she is passing her time with it; enjoying it?_

_She can’t, because she is not.  She will never read that book again, because it is not from her library, but from the one at Combe Magna._

_Does he know?  Can he tell? Can he perhaps spot some invisible stamp upon it that marks it as not hers, but—_

_Someone else’s._

_He cannot._

_But she will throw it from the house the minute he leaves, nonetheless._

_She opens her mouth, closes it.  Does not know what to say, and so tells him that she is teaching Margaret French, because he is looking at her, and she knows that when a man calls on a woman, the woman is supposed to speak of pleasant things._

_And that is the best she currently possesses._

_A minute longer, and then he is rising, bowing, bidding her good-day, farewell, and the minute the door closes behind him her whole body seems to sag with relief._

_Oh God._

_She takes a moment to breathe, to steady herself as best she can, though some days she thinks she will never stop trembling._

_When Margaret comes to her for her French lesson not half an hour later, Marianne sneaks her out of the house when Mama is not looking._

_She sends her to the stream with a book in her arms, and tells her to make paper ships._

_***_

They stare at the fire in armchairs side by side, and they say nothing.

He rotates his glass in his hand, runs his thumb over the lip of it, then lowers it onto the low table between them with a final sounding, dull thud.

She shivers.

He asks if she is cold.

She says no, but shivers again, and he fetches her a blanket from someplace she does not see.

She takes it from his hands, slowly.  Wraps herself in it.  Tries not to breathe in through her nose, because the smell of it reminds her too much of a walk she once took in the rain.

He sits once more then, but this time he looks at her, full in the face, and she can’t help it then, has to draw in a deep breath, because that look is heavy with something she cannot name; something far beyond her meager abilities.  She smells him on the blanket.

_That look is so soft; too soft, and she can’t meet it because she cannot bear it when it is directed at her._

“Wife.”, he says simply, his eyes being merciful and drifting elsewhere after one more long moment.

He calls her _wife._

Her lips part, breath gusting out from between them, and she allows her eyes to rest shut for just a moment too long when she blinks.

 _Husband,_ she mouths, though her throat has become paralyzed and will not give sound to the shape.

_He is the kindest and best of men, and he calls her wife, yet she fears she will break into a million pieces if she ever calls him husband.  She won’t be able to bear it._

But he has seen it.  She can tell by the way the line of his mouth curves gently, not a smile, but something distant to it, a promise that there could be one if she ever finds herself able to conjure the sound to put with the word.

She wants to look at it longer, but finds her eyes tracing patterns on the carpet below instead.

_He is like the sun.  It hurts her eyes to look at him._

His fingers are so still on his knees while hers are twisting his blanket into knots. 

But the fire is warm, and the night is growing late, and he does not seem inclined to say much more to her than he already has, just that one word enough. 

So they sit, side by side, and her eyelids grow heavy as the warmth of the fire lulls her off to sleep.

She does not dream; she breathes the scent of the blanket in through her nose with every breath, and it promises her that she is safe.

***

_A week passes, and she sighs in relief that he has not come._

_Not again; not after last time.  Not since Margaret sailed Shakespeare down the stream._

_She cries._

_She does it quietly, secretly in her room, because she cannot bear for Mama and Elinor to see her.  Cannot bear for them to ask her questions, rest cool hands on her brow._

_She cannot bear for them to coo at her, offering words of comfort.  She is not grieving for him, not now, with these tears, though she often does with others._

_She is grieving for herself, for life that is spinning, racing past her, making her fear that she will never be able to catch it up.  She is so lonely, and she is so bored, and she thinks she may never smile again.  But she will not ask them to be with her, because she spent all of her allotted selfishness long ago._  

 _She does not hear the horse on the road, but she hears Elinor’s voice well enough as her sister knocks at her door._

_When she tells her that Colonel Brandon has come to see her._

_Her thumbs dig cruelly into her eyelids, trying to force the tears and redness from them, though by Elinor’s expression as she opens the door, she has not succeeded._

_“Dearest—”_

_“I only need a moment.”_

_Elinor wants to tell him to go, she realizes with a shock.  Elinor, who thinks him so kind, the best of men, and she wants to htell him to go because of what she sees in Marianne’s own face._

_But Marianne will not let her._

_She only needs one moment._

_A splash, some cool water on her face.  A look in the mirror.  The redness of her eyes would not be so bad if it weren’t for her sickly pallor._

_She does not want to go, does not want to look at him, hear him speak._

_She does not want him to look at her._

_But he is Colonel Brandon, and she can refuse him nothing._

_Not after everything._

_Does he know about the leash he has wrapped around her throat, the one that draws her down the stairs and into the sitting room; the one that forces her to come when he calls?_

_He is already seated, but he stands for her when she enters.  Sits when she sits.  She waits for his questions, the same inquiries as last time, though she cannot think of different answers._

_He stretches out his hand, and offers her a book.  He has drawn it from somewhere she cannot see, somewhere she hadn’t noticed, and she does not hear what he says, because she only just sent Margaret to sail away one book, and now he offers her another?_

_She looks at him, no matter how it hurts her eyes, and sees that he is offering her a very small smile also, and it makes her lips part dumbly._

_What is he doing?_

_She thinks she must look very foolish, because he says quietly, kindly, “For Margaret.  Should she like to read more than lesson books in French.”_

_A swallow.  She must summon words, though they feel as far away as they had been when she woke from her terribly long fever.  She had managed some then, though.  Had managed a thank you, and truly, that is all that is required of her now._

_“But—you shouldn’t.  Margaret will send it back to you with torn pages and stains.”_

_She has not moved her hands; has not reached out for it, but he keeps it there, offered._

_He shakes his head, smile faded, but the terrible kindness of his eyes still there._

_“She need not return it.  It is hers to keep.”_

_A deep breath, and she nods, reaches out carefully to take it without ever brushing his hand with her own.  The cover is leather, unmarked.  No way to know the title._

_And just that quickly, he is taking his leave of her.  Her breath catches in her throat—all she had to do was take the book, and he is bowing, striding down the drive to his horse when she glances at him out the window._

_She clutches his book in her hands.  Opens it.  Reads only two sentences before she closes her eyes and bites her lips to contain something that might all too rapidly turn into far more tears than she shed before he arrived._

_He must have known this book would be far too difficult for Margaret._

_***_

She wakes in near-dark, and she blinks to clear away the blurriness that has clouded her vision.

Colonel Brandon.  He is snuffing the candles out, tending to the fire so that it will stay warm all the night long, and she wonders just how long it is that she has slept.

Wonders if she should apologize.  She had not meant to fall asleep.

He must hear her as she shifts in her seat, as she pulls the blanket tighter around her, her wakefulness leaving her unreasonably colder than she was in sleep, because he turns his face to her, gives her another one of those small smiles, and she does not know what to say.

“You are tired.”, he tells her, as though he can feel her exhaustion in his own bones, though she supposes that her falling asleep has probably given him the right to make such a statement.  “Come to bed.”, he says softly, and her breath hitches in her breast.

_Come to bed._

His voice summons her with the authority of a commandment, and she is rising slowly, the urge to stretch dead before it can reach out to touch her.

_Come to bed._

He is putting out the candle that rests on one of the bedside tables, she sees, and she has an irrational moment of panic when she realizes she does not know which side of the bed is to be hers.

But he gestures to her, so she goes, tells one foot to step in front of the other and finds herself quite suddenly before him, a bride on her wedding night, standing with her husband beside their marriage bed.

She left the blanket in the chair.  She has only her nightgown to cover her now.  It is a modest thing, white, linen, and covering her from collarbones to ankles, but she feels so very bare.

She does not want to, does not believe she can _force_ herself to, but she knows what he wants, though she knows he will not ask, and so very, very slowly, her gaze rises to meet with his.

His expression is unreadable, though there is nothing hard or unkind in it.

 _He is never hard or unkind.  Not to her, not to anyone._   _Except perhaps to Willoughby._

Her eyes fly closed.  _No._   Not now, not here, where she cannot breathe because he is so _soft,_ and she almost wishes he would do something unkind, something hasty or irritable.

_Something like her._

She is not kind, or patient, or gentle.  She has never been steady or generous.  And when he looks at her like he is now, his whole face, eyes, brow, mouth, set in an unbearably warm expression, she feels so very unworthy; ugly, next to everything good that pours out of him.

She feels suddenly very afraid that she will cry, right now, standing before him with his eyes on hers.

He takes the covers of the bed in his hands, draws them back for her, and she takes yet another bracing breath before crawling into the space he has made for her.

_The very last candle is snuffed.  It is dark, save for the fire.  The sheets are cool, and she rolls onto the far side of the bed, her body remembering Elinor sliding in next to her at the cottage before her mind tells her that the weight she feels dipping the bed now is far too heavy to be her sister, and is Colonel Brandon instead.  Her husband has joined her in their bed._

The sheets grow instantly warmer for his presence, and she closes her eyes, lays flat on her back, wants to sleep and never wake up. The bed is comfortable enough for it, if she forgets she is sharing it.  He lies quietly beside her, their breaths steady together, though hers tremble a bit on the inward drag, and oh, mercy, she thinks he has fallen asleep.

The bed shifts.

Her eyes remain closed, she does not think she can open them, they are so very heavy, but she can feel him moving.  He is not asleep.  He is turning, facing her, she can feel it in the feathers beneath her.

He has stopped, propped above her.

She knows what he will do before he does it, but oh, she prays he will not.  She prays she is dreaming; prays _he_ is dreaming, and she is just a figment of his imagination.

_She prays that she will not feel it._

But she does; her prayers go unheeded.  He is leaning down, bearing his weight on one elbow, and she feels his breath against her skin just half a heartbeat before his lips touch her brow, softer than candlelight.

Her breath shudders in her, makes her whole body seize. His lips are on her brow, light as a shadow, and she feels, in this moment, that of all her Sundays in church, all the Eucharists she has partaken in, this moment, here and now, is the holiest benediction she has ever received.  It is so utterly pure, so gentle, this kiss from this husband of hers who should have spilled the blood of her maidenhead on these sheets this very night.  It feels like the kiss a parent would give to a most treasured child, a blessing of indescribable beauty, but he is not her father and she has never been his daughter.

_He is too good, and she is undeserving of his blessing._

And she feels so very ugly in the face of this kiss that she knows he means as a gift.

So she lies very still, and she prays one more time.

She prays that he is not looking at her as he draws away, as he lies back against his own pillows and whispers so quietly, _‘Goodnight, Wife.’_

She prays with every ounce of strength she possesses that he does not see the single tear that escapes past her closed lids. 

But she knows that she prays in vain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love comments!


	2. Chapter 2

_She does not touch the book for three days._

_She hides it, hurries it out of sight as soon as she is certain neither Mama nor Elinor are not about to catch her.  She does not know why it seems to be something that must be kept secret, but she is afraid of what she might do if it were found._

_So it stays in the drawer of her rickety bedside table, thrown there hastily, as though it had burned her palms to hold it, and for three days her gaze is riveted to it whenever she enters her room._

_She never opens the drawer, as if afraid the written words might jump from it somehow and bite her._

_A book.  There is a book in her bedside table, she thinks all throughout her days, and it is from Colonel Brandon.  He has presumably read it, and for some reason seen fit to give it to her.  A book._

_In French._

_She will build up her strength, she thinks as she struggles for rest the night after his gifting.  She will build up her strength, and she will devote herself to strolls once more. That must occupy her time now. She cannot go on as she has, cannot recline all day and allow her mother to dote upon her.  She cannot bear it any longer._

_But neither can she read the book._

_No._

_Anything but that._

_***_

She wakes with a stiff neck.

 _Oh._  She has passed a night in a strange bed, and her muscles are choosing this moment to protest the arrangement most ardently.

The room, she sees as she blinks her eyes, vision bleary from the almost shockingly bright sun, looks quite different during the day than it does at night.  Bright. Sun-filled.  Still so very large, but she no longer feels as though it has swallowed her whole.  She cannot remember the last time she slept until the sun was this high in the sky. She must have been very young. Very young, or very ill.

The Colonel is nowhere in sight.

A maid comes.  Her hair is brushed, face washed.  She is dressed.

_She hasn’t been waited on like this since Norland._

When she walks down the stairs and sees the clock, she feels heat burn her face; she has slept well into the early hours of the afternoon.

_What must he think of her?_

There is an aimless moment, a handful of breaths during which she stands swaying on her legs at the foot of the stairs, eyes straying to the walls, the portraits that hang there.  The sword that she imagines belongs to him, a souvenir of his soldiering days spent in the Indies.

It does not last long though, her wandering. There is a housekeeper, nearly tripping over herself in eagerness to show the young new mistress to the breakfast table.  She is seated, tucked in to her plate of rolls that are somehow still warm at such a late hour, but her eyes are quite fixed elsewhere.

_Colonel Brandon is seated beside her, at the head of the table, a newspaper spread before him._

She does not know what to say.  How does a wife greet her husband the morning after their marriage?  A wife who is still a maid yet, a husband who is far too kind to his foolish young bride.

_How is Marianne Dashwood to be the sort of wife Colonel Brandon should have?_

He smiles at her and murmurs “Good afternoon” quietly, unheard by the housekeeper who is almost out the door, but not quite yet.

She blushes, runs her hands over her lap to smooth any wrinkles that may have formed in her skirts.

There are none.

“I do not usually sleep so late.”

She has not slept so late since she was burning with fever at Cleveland, which, she thinks, he must remember even as she attempts to assure him he has not married a girl who sleeps half the day away. Does he think of the same details she does; the scent of the rain mixed with that of the body so close against her, sharing what he could of his own warmth?  The lilting rhythm of the journey back from the near-icy hillside?

She cannot speak of it; has _never_ spoken of it beyond the breath of a ‘ _thank you.’_

Can he?

She can only hope he never will.  She thinks the shame of it might burn her alive if he ever does.

_So very foolish; but he rescued her all the same._

And now he sits just to her left, and she realizes that while she has been lost in her own musings, her own worries, he has spoken to her and she has not heeded.

Her blush deepens.

He tells her she was tired, just as he had said it so assuredly last night, and only now, in the middle of the afternoon and only just awake does she truly understand what he means.

She is _exhausted._   Not for lack of sleep; not now.  No, she feels as though she has been bearing a great weight—the weight of the Colonel, of shame, and guilt, and regret, and a man who looks at her with entirely too much feeling in his eyes.  The weight of a _wedding,_ of smiling like a radiant bride, bolstered by the smiles of everyone around her, the happiness that came with her marriage to all those she loves, the immense weight of his expression as they walked out of the church _—_ and has only just now been allowed to release it.  They are married, it is done, and finally she may relinquish her weight, because there is nothing to do now but devote herself to learning the ways of wives.

_The ways of Colonel Brandon’s wife._

And most shamefully of all, she cannot help but think for a moment that it should be Elinor here in her place.  But she swallows back against that thought.  It can have no merit now; not with Elinor so in love with Edward and Colonel Brandon sworn to herself for the rest of his days.

Yes, she tells him.  Yes, she was so very tired and has slept late, but it is not usually so. She will wake earlier tomorrow. At Norland she had always been up to see the dawn, she had loved its colors so.

Another smile from him, and he passes the marmalade to her.

*** 

 _It rains for a week._

_It rains, and rains, and rains, and she cannot walk.  She does not think anyone will ever permit her to take a stroll in the rain ever again_

_Mama panics when she sneezes on the second day.  Feels her brow for fever and sends her off to bed at once though she insists she is in perfect health._

_So she curls her feet under her on her bed to keep them warm, wraps herself in a shawl, and watching the raindrops splatter the window._

_If she could permit herself to be romantic once more, she would think they look like tears._

_She is bored.  She unpins her hair, brushes it, then brushes it again.  Margaret joins her, then leaves quickly when Marianne begins a lesson in French._

_She considers an attempt at drawing, but decides better of it.  Such pursuits are far better off in Elinor’s patient hands._

_She tries to sleep, but cannot._

_And all the while, the drawer is resting in the corner of her eye._

_She does not want to.  Fears what will happen if she does, because Colonel Brandon never should have given her a book.  Once, it was music.  A long time ago, almost a lifetime, it seems.  She feels as though she was so much younger then, a flighty girl who romanticized the world.  A young thing who had never met John Willoughby.  Colonel Brandon once gave that girl with music; a gift and a compliment all at once, and she had slighted him so not even a month later._

_Why on earth has he taken it into his head to try again?  She most certainly has done nothing to deserve it._

_But she is bored nearly to tears; has been for the past month if she is honest with herself, and she cannot read any of her own books anymore, because they are all poetry and romance, and she simply cannot bear it._

_With reluctant fingers she reaches for the drawer, opens it.  Draws out a book that she swore only days ago never to read._

_Leatherbound and in French._

_She runs her fingers over it, strokes it.  The cover is fine and soft, smooth.  Just inside the cover it reads simply “To Christopher.”, and her eyelids flutter closed._

_Christopher.  The name can only be his, and she almost regrets knowing it; feels as though he has tricked her somehow into accepting a second gift, hidden inside the first. But who is the giver of the book? How old was he when it was given? She finds she cannot imagine him as a boy receiving a gift._

_She will never ask him._

_It requires five bracing breaths before she can turn to the first page. But turn she does.  She reads the first two sentences for the second time over, then the first page, then the second._

_She is halfway through the book before the afternoon fades to evening and she is forced to light a candle to continue reading._

_The story isn’t the least bit romantic, and she is grateful for it. But it passes the time, and she is even more grateful for that._

_Later, when she lies in bed and tries in earnest to fall asleep, her mind wonders, how did he know?  She has never complained to him of her lot, of her horrible weakness that remains since the fever.  She has never spoken a word of her boredom to any living soul; not even Elinor._

_So how did he know to give her a book to pass the unbearable time?  And how did he know just which book she would like?_

_She falls asleep with her mind still trying to puzzle it out._

_***_

Delaford houses a beautiful pianoforte.

She has seen it before; was here, in this very room after Elinor’s wedding, but now she lives here.  Now, he tells her, it is to be hers, and she is terrified to so much as touch it, despite the fact that there is enough music here to last her a year at the very least.

Days pass, and she never once plays. 

She does walk though.  Delaford possesses beautiful gardens, and the flowers within them put her in mind of a bouquet she once snubbed.  Her strolls are undertaken in the mornings, soon after breakfast which, true to her word, now occurs much earlier than the first. 

He is always awake before her, is always awaiting her arrival at the breakfast table, newspaper in hand.  He folds it soon after she sits though, and eats with her. He asks what she will do with her day, and she tells him she will read, or walk through the garden, or finally, at the very end of the week, when sufficient time has passed since the wedding, that she will walk to the parsonage and visit Elinor.  To which he invariably answers that he hopes she enjoys her book, or that the weather is fine for her stroll amongst the flowers, or that her sister is well.  It is short and it is simple; he departs for whatever business it is that fills his days, and she busies herself with her chosen form of entertainment for the day.

It is easy, and she breathes a sigh of relief that she need not face entire days with him alone.  She had been truly fearful of the prospect before the wedding, his presence near her making her feel so very small, the weight of his eyes on her simply too much to bear.  Now, it seems, she need not have worried.  It seems he is content to share his home with her, yet leave her be once they have broken their fast.

_Except at night._

At night they sleep two to a bed, side by side, and as on the first night, he pulls the covers back for her and snuffs the candles before joining her.

As on the first night, he is so very warm sliding in beside her.

As on the first night, he always kisses her brow in the dark, no more.  He _never_ beds her, and she finds herself shamefully grateful. 

But unlike the first night, she wakes to darkness in the middle of the week, the room pitch around her, and finds herself not cold, as she would have been at the cottage, snuggled tightly into Elinor for heat, but pleasantly surrounded by warmth and softness. 

With gentle, steady breaths brushing the back of her neck.

She shifts her weight, repositions her arm, and enough of her drowsiness fades to tell her that the warmth comes not from the blankets, but from the body pressed up against her beneath them, the arms wrapped around her holding her close.  She thinks she can feel his nose nestled into her hair, and if she shifts her hand just so, she can rest it atop his on her belly.  They had been side by side when they fell asleep, close, but not touching. Now he holds her back firmly to his chest, breathing in her hair, and she can hardly move.  Does not _want_ to move, lest she wake him and tempt him into their goodnight ritual all over again, which would almost certainly mean another kiss laid to her brow, the feel of him so very close to her, the agony of being rendered both speechless and motionless by his cherishing lips befalling her once more.

Does not want to move, because he is keeping her so perfectly warm, and summer is rapidly fading to autumn, leaving a chill in the air come nightfall.

She has always been prone to cold feet.

*** 

_Two days after the rain finally ceases, he calls on her again, though this time she has at last ventured out of doors and is pulling at weeds that grow stubbornly amongst the flowers at the edge of the house as he rides up the road._

_She makes to rise, to dust the dirt from her apron as he strides up the hill to the cottage, but he gestures her down as he calls ‘Good afternoon, Miss Marianne.’_

_She sinks back to her knees before the flowers gratefully.  There is something easier, she believes, about speaking to him outside instead of in the parlor, a room that confines them too much for her comfort, forcing them to stare at one another for lack of anything more interesting to look at.  At least here, at the flowers, she has something to do with her hands._

_He asks after her health.  He always does so, every single time, and she always answers in the same way.  She is feeling stronger.  That is all.  And then he asks about the rain._

_He hopes she has not been too distressed by it.  And in that moment, she knows—he has somehow been reading her thoughts perfectly these past weeks; has known every bit of her loneliness, and she very nearly shies away from him for the realization._

_But she does not, because she knows she owes it to him to acknowledge what he has given her.  Colonel Brandon has been so kind to her mother, seen fit to gift Edward a parish, though such generosity has caused Elinor an unknowable amount of pain._

_Walked miles in the rain to fetch her; to carry her safely home._

_She will never cease being indebted to him._

_‘Not dreadfully bothered.’, she replies, huffing as a particularly stubborn weed fights her, telling him that she has, after all had a book to read._  

_When he says nothing, she chances a glance to his face, because they are outside, and not squeezed too tightly into the parlor, and somehow it is a little easier to look at him here._

_He is looking back at her, a crease between his eyes._

_He asks if it was a good book, and she replies that it was the first she has read in weeks._

_He nods, and she returns to pulling weeds.  She imagines he has worked out what the last book she read was.  After all, poor Shakespeare was drowned all because of him; because of her mortification that he should find one more trace of Willoughby in her house._

_Somehow, she cannot bear the thought of him remembering the man had ever been inside the cottage.  Perhaps it is the memory of the first day, of the two bouquets, or maybe it is the knowledge that there is a girl out there somewhere who will soon bear a child with no father to give it a name._

_A child who will be under the Colonel’s care._

_She tries never to think about that much._

_A few more minutes, and then he is taking his leave.  He never does stay long._

_But this time he promises to bring her another book._

_Oh. She had thought they were not to speak of it; had thought the book was to be gifted to Margaret and that would be the end of it between them, her comments on it today only to serve as a sort of roundabout thank you._

_He is already walking down the hill though, mounting his horse before she can say anything more._

_It is another week before he returns, but when he does, he does indeed bring with him another book._

_And this time, to her horror, and dismay, and utter bewilderment, he reads it aloud to her himself._

_***_

The weeks bleed together, and all too quickly she finds that she has been a married woman for all of a month.

It is… _different_ than she thought it would be.  She passes a great deal of her time alone.

She has read ten books from his library; biographies, histories, even a novel.

She no longer cares to touch poetry.

The garden, she thinks, is quite spent.  She has seen every flower, has the placement of every bush memorized, and she cannot visit Elinor any more often than she does, or her sister will worry for her, and Edward for the Colonel.

She sighs as she climbs the stairs, then again as the maid loosens her stays and drapes her nightdress softly over her body.

The door closes behind the maid, then opens again not five minutes later to reveal the Colonel.

The covers are drawn back, the candles snuffed.  A single kiss is laid to her brow.  She waits for his breathing to even; has learned that if she remains awake for long enough, she can feel him reach for her in his sleep, but that it is not until she herself drifts off that they fully assume the perfect angle together to keep her feet warm. 

She still has not mentioned that he holds her close at night.  She has sworn to herself over and over that she never will.

Another sigh, just as his breathing seems to even. Tonight will be long, for she is not the least bit tired.

_Except._

Perhaps his breathing was not quite even enough, because she hears the whisper of a head turning against the softness of a pillow before he asks quietly “Are you well?”

_Oh._

“Quite well.”, she whispers.  She will be quieter next time.

Then _he_ sighs. 

The bed shifts beneath her, dips strangely. There is a sound, a fumbling, and then a lone candle is lit.  She blinks. The candles are _never_ relit after being snuffed.  There is only his kiss, followed by sleep.

But there he sits, looking down at her.

She can _feel_ herself blushing.  She dislikes it when he examines her, feels as though he should find her wanting, though she does not believe he ever has. 

There is a long, stretching moment, many seconds counted away by the clock that rests above the fireplace, and then—

_His hand._

It reaches out, slow, and she watches it, eyes fixed upon it as it draws near to her.  Breath sticking in her chest a heartbeat before it touches her, eyes finally closing.  And there it is, brushing the hair back from her brow, every bit as gentle as his kiss.

_Oh.  She cannot bear to open her eyes._

He sighs again.

“You have been lonely for your sisters these past weeks, I think.”

_And how on earth does he do it?_

How can he possibly know the workings of her mind so very clearly?  Perhaps she has not been terribly lonely for her _sisters,_ but she has felt so terribly listless and idle; quite simply bored, and her sisters have never allowed her to be that.

 _Yes,_ she has been lonely for them, and she nods carefully. 

She suddenly feels very shaky, though she rests safely on the bed; is suddenly afraid that tears will fall if he looks at her like that for much longer. 

But he does not. 

He is rising, leaving the bed, crossing the room to one of the shelves that is stacked with a collection of books she has never bothered to examine; there are more than enough in the library to occupy the hours she devotes to reading.

He returns holding one in his hands, and her throat feels very thick as she guesses what he is about.

The candle.

The book. 

He fears she has been ill-content these past weeks, and in his own way he is right.  She has yet to settle into any degree of comfort in his home. 

And he does not disappoint.  He seats himself on his side of the bed, propped against the head of it, he opens the book to a page in the middle, he begins to read a poem to her.

_Oh._

It so reminds her of the first time, of the horror of it, the terrible memories, the almost all-consuming knowledge that she has heard almost every poem in the world read to her in John Willoughby’s voice.

She could hardly sit still that first time; certainly had not heard any of the words.  She cannot even remember what the poem was. 

But he had done it again, and again, and again, his calls growing more frequent, reading his way through three books of poetry before he even began to court her, or perhaps before she realized he had begun to court her.  And it had required every one of those books to teach herself to listen to the cadence of written words in his voice.

_A beautiful reading voice._

So in the utter discomfort of the moment, of him propped next to her, reading from a book she has never even heard of, she closes her eyes and allows that learned peace to wash over her once more, until it is no longer Colonel Brandon beside her, no longer her husband, but a voice.  A wonderful, lovely voice reading to her, the words on the page crafted into a lullaby as he speaks them.

She never knows if he finishes the poem, or if he kisses her again after the candle is once more snuffed.  She drifts off before he turns the page.

*** 

_He returns sooner than usual, the same book in his hands, and she swallows back tears of frustration as she forces herself to sit and listen._

_She never wants to hear poetry again, finds that it now grates on her nerves, yet he brings it to her like a gift._

_Again.  And again. And again._

_She wants to scream._

_But she cannot._

_Because when he comes, she is not drifting through the house, a waif that her mother and sister are always watching, always examining for paleness or tired eyes._

_And because he has carried her through the rain, and she can do nothing but be grateful for his kindness to her and attempt to be kind to him in return now._

_They sit outside, and he reads to her instead, and if listening to Colonel Brandon reading poetry is the price she must pay for an hour of freedom, she will do it._

_So she does._

_His visits grow more frequent, and eventually she learns not to sigh to herself when she hears his horse on the road.  Eventually, she learns not to wince when he presents her with a new book he is to read to her from.  She learns these things because of his voice._

_It is a beautiful, arresting thing.  She fights down surprise whenever he reads, because he does so with such care, such attention to the words and tenderness for them, he—_

_Is perhaps the finest reader she has ever heard._

_She catches her breath hard at the realization.  Is stunned to even think it.  How strange that Colonel Brandon, in all his dullness, should possess such a gift of tenderness._

_She finds that, even as she hates the poetry he reads with a violent passion, she hears it gladly, because it comes to her by way of his voice.  Though she does not like being read to, can remember far too many times she has done this before with another man, she asks him every time, ‘Shall we continue tomorrow?’, and every time he smiles and nods in reply._

_Until one day he does not._

_“No, for I must away.”_

_“Away?  Where?”_

_She meets his eyes, if only out of surprise at his deviation from their day to day routine._

_“That, I cannot tell you.  It is a secret.”_  

_And she looks away.  Thinks. Imagines him on the road._

_Perhaps he is going to visit the girl, the Beth he has spoken to Elinor of. Her time must be nearly upon her by now._

_And with that in mind, she turns back to him once more, no more questions about his destination on her tongue._

_“You will not stay away long?”_

_And there.  She watches it form, the smile that comes to his face, so small, but reaching his eyes and filling them with warmth.  Her breath catches, and for a moment she regrets asking the question._

_For a moment, she wonders at that smile.  Wonders at him visiting her nearly every day for two weeks simply to read poetry to her.  Thinks it might not be entirely out of kindness, and wonders at what she will do if that budding, largely unacknowledged suspicion proves true._

_But he shakes his head no, and she smiles in spite of herself.  She will not go without the distraction of his company for long._

_She will not be left alone for long._

_She takes great comfort in that thought._

_Until the piano arrives._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love comments! They make me write faster.


	3. Chapter 3

Their nights are now forever changed.

He never read to her after their engagement, or perhaps she never let him, but now he does every night before the last candle is snuffed, voice whispering poetry to her as she drowses, fighting for wakefulness so that she does not miss his words.

Sometimes he reads to her by the fire, side by side in their chairs, the warmth of it tempting her to drift away into an easy sleep. Sometimes she lies flat on her back across the bed, and he sits on its edge.

Sometimes they lie side by side as a man and wife, he propped on his pillows, she nestled into the blankets.  Whenever they do it like that, his hand always reaches down at least once to idly stroke her hair, and because his voice is lovely and soft; because she is drowsy and warm and it is no longer their wedding night, she is no longer trembling in utter exhaustion and fear of the unknown, she lets him.

And always, the very last thing she knows before sleep takes her is the feeling of his lips brushing her brow.

***

_She watches the men carry the thing in, grunting under its weight, and she finds that has absolutely not a thing in her mind to say._

_A piano.  He has sent her a piano._

_They laugh in happy surprise, her mother and sisters.  Margaret shrieks with glee at the Colonel’s kindness and Elinor—_

_She does not meet Elinor’s gaze, too afraid of what she will find there._

_He has sent her a piano._

_She cannot think, does not know_ what _to think, except that the book she holds in her hands, the book she had been reading for the second time over when the cart bearing her gift arrived, is now so much heavier._

_A book._

_A piano._

_A letter._

_She hears Mama apply an extra bit of weight to the name the Colonel has signed his words with._

_Christopher Brandon._

_She does not tell any of them that she has already known that name for weeks; has yet to tell him that the book she holds in her hands has not always been hers, but was not so long ago his._

_He has sent her music.  He expects her to learn it, and presumably to play it for him when he returns, and she does not want to look at it._

_Oh God, he has given her a piano._

_But she sits because they are all smiling at her, smiles when Margaret says “He must like you very much.”_

_He has come to read poetry to her nearly every day since the first._

_“It is not just for me.  It is for all of us.”, she insists, even as something terribly uneasy rises inside of her._

_It cannot be just for her, because if it is, if he_ _is—_

_She will not be able to bear it.  Not now, after everything; not after he has carried her through the rain._

_Not after his Eliza and her Beth._

_She can hardly breathe as she looks at the music before her, because here is yet another kindness he has paid to her; one she has done nothing to deserve, and one that she will never be able to repay._

_It cannot be only for her.  She does not think she will be able to bear his love after he has already showered her with an agonizing amount of kindness_

_But he has sent her a piano and expects her to learn the music he has chosen for her._

_So she will._

_He has been far too kind to a foolish young girl like her._

_***_

He changes after that first night of reading.

He no longer reads the paper at breakfast, but instead wants to talk to her.

She remembers how they used to talk, after the piano but before their engagement.  Before the terror of being a wife stole her words from her and struck her near-silent in his presence.

She never used to be shy.

But oh, now she is.  Now she must fight for every word she speaks to him, must force her tongue to form the proper shape. 

She wonders what Elinor would say if she could see her now, fighting for words the way a dying man fights for a breath. 

They talk of little, unimportant things.  The flowers in his garden, and which ones will still remain once winter has come upon them and faded to spring.  They talk of the parish, of Edward and Elinor.  She tells him where she will walk for the afternoon; thinks that it must ease his mind a little to know she does not plan to stray far.

She has no intention of forcing him to come after her once more.

When she walks in the garden, he is sometimes there, where before he never was.  Some days he is reading on a bench, others he is tending a rose bush.  Still others he is working at his desk in the house, and he smiles at her through the window. 

Sometimes she smiles back.

*** 

_It is Edward._

_She practices the piano every day with an almost religious fervor, ironing out the mistakes as neatly as she can, stretching her voice back to its former strength before Colonel Brandon’s return.  A return that she now looks forward to with an entirely unreasonable amount of dread since the arrival of the piano._

_Something strange and unknown inside of her insists that the piece must be perfect for him.  She, in all her folly and naivete is far from perfection when contrasted with his kindness, but this music he has chosen for her will be flawless._

_He has, after all, chosen a beautiful piece._

_Mama calls to her through the open window, “Here is Colonel Brandon, Marianne.”, and something seizes up tight in her stomach, alarmed._

_He has given her a piano.  What is she to do with him now?_

_But it is not Colonel Brandon; it is Edward._

_Oh Elinor, she has not thought of her sister nearly enough these past months. Hardly paid mind to her trials until after her own had swallowed her whole in London, and even now has been far too caught up in Colonel Brandon’s kindness and how it weighs so heavily on her, she has nearly forgotten dear Elinor’s struggles._

_“Calm.  We must be calm.”_

_Mama, but the words make her daughters anything but calm._

_Marianne watches Elinor, follows her eyes, the creases that have folded themselves into the flesh surrounding her mouth.  Just now, Elinor looks as pale as Marianne ever has, and she wonders if she will now watch her sister faint._

_But Elinor is strong, and her broken heart is far less treacherous than Marianne’s own._

_Edward, Elinor, all of them squeezed together in the sitting room, and yes, she understands their eyes and how they skitter across the floor, searching desperately for something besides each other’s gaze to rest on._

_She has done it many times before, Colonel Brandon on the settee across from her._

_“We have been enjoying very fine weather.”_

_Margaret.  And only a few minutes later Marianne and her mama are pulling her from the room, Elinor falling to pieces where she sits, Edward as worn and miserable as ever Marianne has seen him._

_Is that she has never seen two more hopeful, deserving souls in all her life, and when she sends Margaret climbing up a tree, reporting back that Edward is sitting next to Elinor, that he is kneeling down, it is all she can do not to shout for the first true joy she has felt in more months than she can count._

_She does not believe she has ever felt a joy like this._

_The following hours are happy ones, spent recalling stories that Edward has not been privy to until now; telling what has not been tellable these many months._

_She has not seen Elinor smile so much or so purely in more than a year._

_Morning has faded to very late afternoon by the time Colonel Brandon finally arrives._

_She does not hear his horse, never does, but Margaret calls out to him as Betsy shows him into the sitting room, and they all greet him merrily.  She has never seen this room so crowded, nor has she witnessed it so joyful, and as the Colonel takes his seat, she cannot help but smile at him, aware that it is the first time she has done so since before London but feeling as though her joy will spill right over her and onto the floor if she does not let it out in some way._

_He smiles back, a small, sincere thing, and it puts her in mind of that first day at Barton Park, when he was just a name and smiling kindly at the girl Mrs. Jennings called a delightful songbird._

_Just as then, he is across from her, and just as then, she sits on a piano bench.  Their sitting room is so full, it is the only place left for her.  She will not move Edward from Elinor’s side for the sake of having a cushion to seat herself on._

_So much has happened since that day; he has been so very much to them. He has saved her, been a friend to her, he has provided Edward with the home he is now free to share with Elinor._

_He has gifted her the very piano bench she sits on._

_She remembers dreading his return, still dreads the day he visits and has her to himself; the day she will be called upon to play the music he has given her._

_She still cannot fathom what she should think of the piano he has given her._

_But she knows that she owes almost everything her family now possesses to him. Knows that she owes him her very life._

_She will never stop being indebted to him._

_She hopes her smile tells him that she is grateful._

_***_

She visits Elinor.

There are days when Delaford is simply too big to remain inside of; days when she remembers tea, and Elinor, and Margaret fussing with her atlas, and she longs for them so desperately that she thinks she will burst.

Elinor’s little parish is not so very different from Barton Cottage, and Marianne remembers well the effort spent before the wedding preparing it for its new inhabitants.  It makes her smile to see her sister so happy in it now. 

And Elinor always makes the most delicious tea.

They sit on Elinor’s modest little settee, and they talk of the change of seasons from summer to autumn, of Edward’s passion for his little parish, of Margaret and how she has grown.

Elinor asks after her own marriage, and Marianne feels color rise to her face.  What will her sister say if she tells her of the sort of wife she has been, so shy and reserved?  Can she tell her of the kisses laid nightly to her brow; of the puzzlement that grows in her from their tender chasteness?  She is far from unhappy with her lot, feels rather fortunate that she has not been pressed to show more affection to her husband that she has. Colonel Brandon is a good, kind man, but her greatest secret is that she does not know if she will ever regain the sort of passion she supposes is generally found between husbands and wives; she feels as though it has all been leeched from her, rolling off of her in waves during her great, burning fever.

 _That_ is the fear that keeps her silent where once her words bubbled over, uncontained.

She imagines telling her secret to Elinor, allows the scene to play out in her mind, but she cannot do it.  She has never confided it to anyone, and she does not think she ever will.

She tells her sister instead that Delaford is a very fine place to live, indeed.  She tells her that the rose bushes are lovely, but that the days are a little slow.

She tells her that she is almost afraid to touch such a fine pianoforte.

Elinor looks at her strangely.

“Marianne, dearest, surely you must know it is _yours?”_

Her lips part at Elinor’s words.  Almost exactly the same ones her husband used during her first morning as a wife.

Yes, the pianoforte now belongs to her, as she is now the mistress of Delaford.  But perhaps it is not the pianoforte she is afraid of.  Perhaps it is the new position that makes it hers.  She remembers her engagement so very vividly, remembers the nervousness, the sheer, naked _terror_ that had possessed her in the days leading up to the wedding.

_To be a wife._

Somehow the word makes her feel years younger than she truly is; whole inches shorter.

Not just to be a wife; to be _Colonel Brandon’s wife._

She is so very afraid of such a responsibility.  So very afraid of failing at it.

Because she is far too foolish and selfish, far too ugly beside him, when he has always been so kind and generous to her and her family.

She does not know how to repay him, how to clear away her debt to him.  _How to atone for what she has done._

And until she can, she fears the name Mrs. Brandon will swallow her whole; fears the keys of his piano will reach out and bite her fingers if she ever attempts to play them. 

All the rosebushes at Delaford, all the smiles through windows in the world cannot soothe that fear.

She does not know if she will ever find anything that can.

*** 

_She lies awake with Elinor night after night, counting down until she no longer has the comfort of her sister beside her all through the night._

_Margaret will not be the same._

_They talk about Edward, about love, and Marianne cannot help but think how different Elinor sounds now than she was at Norland, when she was not yet free to love with her whole heart._

_Wonders if this is how she sounds when she speaks of absolute and total love._

_They sleep curled together, and Marianne cherishes these last weeks that they are well and truly sister with nothing standing between them._

_Colonel Brandon does not call as often now Elinor is engaged._

_Edward has taken up residence in the guest quarters of the cottage, and his presence seems to have rather lessened the Colonel’s.  When he does call, they are almost always called upon to chaperone the couple, walking behind them at a leisurely pace and generous distance along a well-trodden path that winds through the hills near the cottage._

_These are the first strolls Marianne has taken since her terrible walk in the rain, and a part of her cherishes them, even as she is acutely aware of the potent love between Edward and her sister, and that she and Colonel Brandon are now privy to it together._

_She is far more unsteady on her feet than she would like; all too often she misses her footing where before she did not.  She loses her breath in less time, and she can no longer surge her way up the steepest hill through sheer determination as she once could._

_And all of this, she is well aware, is witnessed with the greatest care and attentiveness by Colonel Brandon.  His hand closes over hers when her balance fails her, giving her something steady with which to brace herself.  He never insists on a brisk pace, nor does he ever choose to climb directly to the top of a hill, instead making a rather ill-shaped circle around it until they reach the peak seemingly by chance._

_She is nearly always too flushed already from exertion for her blush to show, but she feels it, nevertheless._

_He tells her that her sister looks very happy, and she smiles to agree, something bound up tight in her chest loosening at this great and well-deserved reward of Elinor’s._

_Indeed, she looks very happy._

_The days pass well after Elinor’s engagement, and having waited long enough for their unanticipated joy, her sister and her intended see no reason to wait for a long engagement.  Elinor’s finest dress is trimmed in new lace, flowers fastened to her Sunday bonnet._

_The parish is given what repairs it required to make it a suitable home for a newly married pair, and soon enough the wedding has stolen a march upon the family Dashwood, only days away._

_Two days prior to the happy event, and Marianne must fight to keep the moisture in her eyes from her face for Elinor’s sake.  She must not allow her sister to see her cry; not now, after such long-awaited happiness seems at last upon her._

_She steals away, a cloak draped over her arm for the chill that is yet in the air from winter, though it has faded well into spring, and makes the very long walk to the parish.  It needs tidying yet, and she will not have Elinor greeted by a disordered home so soon after she is wed.  She needs an occupation anyway, to distract her from the knowledge that her sister will soon leave her for the love of her husband instead._

_It is afternoon by the time she arrives, her walks rather less vigorous now than they once were._

_The little house is just as it was when she and Elinor left it last:  Clean, free of dust and small, many-legged inhabitants, but in disarray, furniture all piled up in one corner, waiting to be arranged._

_The only pieces of furniture small enough for her to move are the chairs that are to go around the table, and she does so, making a circle around only air when she proves to herself with resounding finality that she is incapable of moving the table itself._

_Next, she lays down a carpet, and she is just readying to pile the dishes onto their shelves when she hears “Miss Marianne.”, from behind her._

_She turns on her heel so quickly, sucks in such a ragged breath, that she almost drops the teacup she is holding._

_And there he is.  Colonel Brandon has found her, though seeking her out could not have been his purpose when he made the short journey from Delaford to the parish, and now she is faced with him and has not any idea of what she should say._

_“You startled me!”_

_It sounds harsher when given breath than she first meant it to be, and she knows he hears it, because he immediately straightens, gives a little, proprietary bow.  Says quietly, “Forgive me.”_

_She nods, and they are faced with silence._

_She turns the teacup in her hands, his eyes find her circle of chairs.  They say nothing._

_Finally, he draws a breath, says perfunctorily, “I will take my leave of you.”, and her eyes fly closed, because she knows what he is thinking._

_They were not like this before he left; were, if not friends, at least a little easier in one another’s company._

_Then the piano had arrived, and his book had grown so much heavier in her hands, his name weighing on her tongue.  The piano is in her sitting room now, where she cannot forget its presence, nor its giver._

_And as quickly as that, their fragile easiness is gone._

_But this parish, this living is his, and it is only because of his kindness that Elinor will live here with her beloved Edward.  He is so dear and kind to Margaret and her mama; most especially to Marianne herself, his book seeing her through the unbearable boredom of the last of a sickbed, his piano meant as a generous and thoughtful gift._

_Perhaps as something more than that, but there is no denying the kindness in the gesture, regardless._

_So she asks him to wait.  Just softly, hardly more than a whisper when they are here alone, closer to his home than hers._

_He stops, turns, looks at her.  He obeys her and waits._

_“I—I cannot move the table by myself.”_

_They stand there a moment longer, her looking carefully at him, he looking more hesitantly at her than he has in weeks.  Perhaps since she lay in a bed of wrinkled sheets, pale from a fever only just broken._

_Another breath._

_“Will you help me?"_

_And he does.  He steps forward slowly, pulls his gloves from his hands and they set about settling the table into its place, the Colonel taking care to bear much more of the weight than she does herself._

_They rest for a moment after they finish, and she wipes her hands on her skirts as though they have been dirtied by the process, but the silence is falling once more and cannot bear it when he simply looks at her, so she turns her eyes to the remaining furniture, and they begin arranging the armchairs, the shelves, she settles the dishes into their places._

_His presence shortens the process immensely, and when they are finished they survey their work with pleased expressions, content that the Ferrars will have a home readied and tidy for them when they arrive after they are wed._

_At last, it is just the two of them once more, no task between them to occupy their thoughts.  They have worked well together, have accomplished much, but now they are left with the silence of that accomplishment having as heavily as the table between them._

_She thanks him, tells him she could not have done it all without him, and he nods. Tells her not to think of it._

_But she does._

_They are outside then, she turning homeward, he watching her._

_“Did you walk all this way?”, he asks, incredulity in his tone for which she is not surprised.  She has proven herself to be no possessor of great strength in the walks they have taken recently with Edward and Elinor, and she thinks that it was perhaps only stubbornness that carried her from her cottage to the parish today.  And it will see her home._

_She tells him she did, tells him she has always loved to walk, and he grows quiet, looks as though he might say something, then falters._

_Finally, he replies “I know.”, and she stops short._

_She knows, without even the smallest of doubts, that they are both remembering the same walk in the rain; that they are both feeling the cold of it, the distance._

_She remembers him holding her, though most days she is able to forget._

_For a moment she thinks he will offer to accompany her home, but then it seems he thinks better of it.  Perhaps knows that the piano has changed her view of him, shifted it just enough to make her unwilling to permit as much as she did before._

_He only says “Be careful.”_

_She stands very still, looking at him.  Does he know just how many times Mama and Elinor have told her the very same since her fever broke?  How it has vexed her for the confinement it serves as?_

_But he is not her mother, nor is he her sister._

_He is Colonel Brandon, and he carried her for miles in the pouring rain._

_She tells him she will be; promises it to him and means it._

_She owes him that much._

_***_

The sun is setting by the time she leaves Elinor and returns to Delaford.

Dinner is a quiet affair; it always is, for it is just the two of them.  After dinner he always retreats to his study and she to the library, then they reunite at a later hour in their bedroom.

But tonight, when she reaches the library, he is already there.

She sees him and instantly knows she should say something, _wants_ to says something, but finds that she cannot begin to know what.

He is reading a book.

And there is a pile of music by the pianoforte that she has never seen before.

He looks up as she closes the door as quietly as she can behind her, lets his mouth twitch in a suggestion of a smile as his eyes find her over the top of his book.

“Wife.”

_He always calls her so._

She nods, finds her own twitch of a smile.

 _Cannot call him husband; cannot call any man husband._   _Does not know if she will ever be capable of being a wife._

She looks askance at the music as she selects a book of her own, then sits.

He tells her he went looking for it today, tells her that he has thought to play once more.

Tells her that the house has been far too silent for far too long, and each of his words feels like it adds another weight of guilt to her, though she cannot imagine he means to condemn.

 _She_ has been far too silent for far too long.  She knows it well, and imagines that he has said _that_ instead of his true words.

She can feel every kiss he has ever given her, all of them resting on her brow at once in this moment.

_He cannot have imagined her as a silent, cold wife when he married her._

So now he means to play, because she will not. Colonel Brandon, who loves music enough to give her a piano.

And that thought shames her to her very core, because she _remembers._  

She has never once thanked him for it.  Never even played the song he chose for her for him. In all the excitement of Elinor and Edward, then of their own engagement, she never thought to.

She thinks back, tries to recall the last time he heard her play.  Has it truly been so long?  It _cannot_ have been only the once?

But it is.  He has only heard her play the once.  And now his piano, his beautiful, terrible gift to her lies unused in a cottage she no longer lives in, and he never heard her play it even once.

The realization leaves her gasping for breath, her hand over her stomach to steady herself as she gingerly takes a seat across from him, looks him full in the face, as serious as she has ever been with him.

He meets her gaze.

“It was beautiful.”, she tells him quietly, so sincerely, and he just looks at her, puzzled.  “The piano,” she tells him.  “I never told you— _thanked you._   It was beautiful.”

Her voice trails off on the last sentence; is only a breath by the time she finishes, but his eyes never waver from hers.  He is always attentive when she speaks, but here, now, she has his entire focus, she knows.

He swallows.

“I should not have.”, he tells her.  “I should have let it be.  I should have known you were not ready.”

She squeezes her eyes shut against the look on his face.  He is too good, and in this moment, she succumbs to her old impulsiveness and thinks that she would rather die than have him believe she never used his gift because of her memories of Willoughby.

_Because she knows all too well that that is what he means._

“No.”, she whispers.  “No, I practiced.  I played it the very first day.  I—”

_She never played it for him._

She cannot speak anymore, because this is the longest she has allowed her eyes to meet his since before she met Willoughby, and yet somehow it seems like the man has snuck into the room with them, wedging his way between him.  And no matter that she does not love her husband as Elinor loves hers, no matter than he is not the man she imagined she would promise herself to, he is far too good to share his home with John Willoughby.

She will not allow it.

So she swallows back against herself; sets aside her book and rises, walks across the room to the pianoforte that has always seemed so large a imposing to her, but that now seems rather small.

_He is watching her, turning in his seat so that his eyes can follow her._

She has not played since before they became engaged; has not sung a note in longer.

But her fingers still remember the music, and her voice can relearn it.

She plays.  She sings.

It strikes her anew what a lovely piece of music he chose for her.

Her voice strains on the highest note, but she carries on to the very end.  And when she finishes, she turns her eyes to him again.

“I practiced every day.”, she tells him.  “It was only…I never showed you.”

He is looking at her, his eyes have never left her this whole time, but she cannot read his expression.

A long moment, stretched to its breaking point, trembling between them.

And then he is rising, walking to her, and she cannot speak.

“You play beautifully.”, he tells her, and then he is leaning and she has slept in his bed enough nights to know that he is going to kiss her head.

She leans into the pressure of his lips on her temple, and for once when it feels as though he is blessing her, as though he is pouring everything good in him out on her, she cherishes it instead of shrinking away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think. I value your feedback.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok guys, LOOOOONG chapter here. Sorry/not sorry, but this one's a little bit depressing towards the middle. Just give it a chance and it'll all even out. It's been a long time since I updated, I know, but I've rewritten this about three times now, and I think this is about as close as I'm going to get for now, so I'm going ahead and posting it even though I'm not 100% on board with what's happening here. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you like it & don't forget to comment!
> 
> Row

She cannot think what possessed her to do it.

Their bed is so silent that night as they each find their allotted places amongst the pillows, their book untouched on his bedside table.  She does not hardly dare breathe for fear of breaking the noiselessness around them.

She wonders if he is angry.  He does not look it, though in truth, she has never seen him truly angry, and can only presume she would recognize such a state.  She has given him no reason to be so that she can think of.

Though she finds that she has given _herself_ abundant reason to be angry.

 _What madness had come over her?_

What a fool she is, to have imagined that so little as a song played belatedly for a husband she has hardly spoken to since their marriage could break whatever it is that stretches tensely between them. 

_He kisses her on the brow, draws back too slowly from her, does not simply look at her._

He does not lower himself to her side, as he has done every other night, and she finds herself tensing, waiting for him to find his place at her side, to fall asleep and reach out for her in the night, all-unknowing.

She can feel his thumb on her, whisper-soft beneath her jaw, in that tender place where she imagines her pulse beats against him like the counts in a song.

She holds her breath and feels her pulse quicken in response.  Watches him above her, studying the skin that his thumb strokes gently back and forth. 

 _She cannot breathe._  

Why now, when she is fresh and tender from John Willoughby’s ghost interfering in the library she shares with another man?  A man who is her _husband;_ a man who has never once looked at her with Willoughby’s lively ardor; his hunger.  Because there _had_ been hunger, of a sort she has not been educated in the nuances of, what recognizable to her, nonetheless.

No, her husband is a man who has always gazed at her in just the way he does now, eyes _too_ gentle.  Too soft, and now that she knows to look for it, so achingly sad.

Those eyes look at her, and they ask her for nothing but to be allowed to give her measureless quantities of something she finds she cannot name and _cannot_ bear.

She blinks, turns her head to the side to break the meeting of their gazes.

Causes the callous of his thumb to drag over her skin until it rests at the very edge of where her hair meets with flesh.

His look changes then, after she moves.  It grows tamer, for she cannot say it gentles, when already it is the very gentlest thing she has ever seen.  She can almost _see_ him remember that she is a stiff wife, cool and reserved where she was once all liveliness and laughter; passionate and drawn to love as a moth to flame.

_She wishes he would move, would stop touching her, if only so she could think once more on other things instead of feeling only his skin on hers; enduring the strangeness of it._

He must sense it, must feel it in her, the desperation, because he simply leans down.  For a moment she is lost, so very unsure, because her brow has already been kissed.  Blessed.

But he is not kissing her brow.

He lowers himself to the bed as his lips find her once more before sleep catches them both, and she feels his breath shift the hair at her temple just so before his lips touch the skin there.

This kiss is longer, not just a goodnight to a wife, but something new, something—

 _Savored._  He is kissing her skin, pressing his nose against her hairline, resting his forehead on the crown of her head as though she is something to be cherished; beloved to him, as though in this moment he finds himself incapable of keeping himself from her. 

Her breath has long since returned to her, though it is a shaky, unsteady thing now.  She finds her face tilting toward his, wants to see for herself if his eyes are open or if they have fallen closed.

Wants to try to read them, though they are foreign to her.

But his eyes are already closed, his head already finding its resting place on his pillow, and she feels so strangely hollow, and yet equally relieved that it is all over now.  It had been so very nearly unbearable after the soft sound of the notes of the piece he chose for her ringing between them in the library.

But in all the agony of it, it never once occurs to her to pull away.

 ***

_The morning of Elinor’s wedding dawns, and Marianne swears to herself that she will not cry._

_Not today, with her sister watching._

_The ceremony is small; too small for the church, which is in fact, rather large._

_But the ceremony is no less lovely for its size._

_Marianne stands behind her sister and listens to the couple make their vows. Mama and Margaret are seated in the very first pew, Sir John and Mrs. Jennings behind them._

_Colonel Brandon has taken the pew behind Edward; he is the only man who has come to be a friend to the bridegroom, though they met less than half a year ago._

_Elinor is beaming._

_Marianne watches them, can see the love plainly in their eyes, and it is overflowing.  Rare tears fall from Elinor’s eyes and Edward’s voice shakes as he swears himself to her forever.  Marianne feels the rise of tears in her own eyes but quickly tamps them down, finding herself smiling instead as she watches the two savor their bliss at the altar._

_Tears come again when they are finally pronounced man and wife, but she blinks, bats them away, turns her gaze so that Elinor will not see that her eyes have gone glossy._

_She meets the Colonel’s gaze quite by accident and his mouth does one of his gentle tugs, the movement that promises the presence of a smile within him, as though she has said hello and he is greeting her in reply._

_And in spite of her tears, because of her nearly unbearable joy that they have finally reached this moment in which Elinor is perfectly, unwaveringly happy without fear, she finds herself smiling back a little in reply._

_***_

The days pass on, one after another, and very soon the beginning of autumn has become nearly winter. 

The Colonel goes shooting often.  He leaves early, takes his dogs and Sir John, and when he returns in the afternoon he has several birds to show for his efforts. The first time he goes she does not know where he is going, but only that he has gone.  The first hint of his return come in the form of a very excitable bird dog nearly bowling her over in its eagerness to enter the house. 

 _Oh._  He makes her laugh, the Colonel and his dogs.  He pets him, plays with them; adores them as she has never before seen a man care for his animals.  Not just with pride, but with an affection than manages to be somehow boyish and fatherly all at once.

It never fails to make her smile, and that, in turn, never fails to make him smile in reply.

He teaches her their names, takes her just outside the front of the house to watch them race across the wide lawn and play. 

He laughs at their silliness, and at night he allows them to sleep on the rug by the fire, heaped together like overgrown puppies.

Dogs were never allowed in the house at Norland.

He is petting them one night, nearly all of the candles snuffed.  She is seated on the edge of the bed and he is seeing to the fire one last time before he joins her, as though the servants have not stoked it enough.

He wishes them all a good night.

Perhaps it is because she is tired, or perhaps waiting for him to come to bed does strange things to her now that she knows to expect his affections before they truly sleep.  One kiss has become a modest few, and his hand nearly always strokes her hair, arranging it just so into a shape she cannot make sense of.

Perhaps it is neither of those things, but something else entirely, but she opens her mouth and speaks something she almost instantly regrets.

“Colonel Brandon, I do believe you love those dogs as well as you would your own children.”

Her teeth come together too hard, clicking loudly in her ears and gritting against themselves.

 _His own children._  

For a moment she hopes against all hope that he has not heard her.

But then.

“Not quite.”

It is spoken softly, evenly, as though she has commented on something as mundane as the weather, but all she can think of are his kisses in the near-dark, his thumb stroking her pulsepoint as though it is precious to him.

His children.  Mrs. Jennings asks her in a way that is meant to be discreet but that even Margaret can decipher every time they see one another. 

_He is far too good for a girl like her._

Does he love Beth as well as he would a daughter, she wonders? 

She has not even asked after the birth, and he has not told her.  She supposes all went well, or he would surely have shown some sort of mourning. 

Does he love the child like his own? 

Something deep inside her hopes that he does, hopes against everything rational in her that she is not depriving him of something so natural and good as the love of a father for his children.

She knows she is wrong.

He comes to her then.  She can hear his footsteps, even if her eyes are riveted to the carpet at her feet.  When he stops before her, she knows that this is when she always shifts, rolling into her place beneath the covers so that he may find his, but she does not move.

The longer she sits, the longer it will be before his lips find her, so very gentle.

She stares at her fingers, smooths them out as much as she can, then picks at a bit of dirt that does not exist on the index finger of her left hand.

He is waiting.

“Elinor is with child.”

She does not remember deciding to speak it; cannot recall giving her tongue permission to, but she hears the words meet with the air, and it is like hearing them for the first time all over again.

 _Mrs. Jennings asks her as near to once a week as she can manage it when_ she  _will be._

She cannot look at him. 

“She must be very happy.”, he murmurs as he begins to snuff the bedside candles.

“Yes, she is.”, she replies back carefully, unsure at his tone.  He has spoken with a sort of tenderness, something soft like a blanket, warm and knowing, and the way his voice settles over her like a comfort gives her the unnerving thought that he knows exactly what she has been thinking just now.

_How does he always know?_

Her throat feels thick as she watches his form, never his face.  He is always so intent with the candles, always the same order, every single night.

“You will have cause to visit her often.”, he tells her. “She will want you with her when her confinement comes.”

Then he is sitting, taking his place beside her, though she has yet to move to her own, and he says very quietly, almost a whisper, “The birth of a child is a wonderful thing.”

_God._

She cannot breathe.  The panic comes upon her so suddenly, there is no warning.  All of a sudden, she is quite unable to have him so near; incapable of finding her place in their bed.  The moment she opens her mouth to gasp for more air, a choked, all too near tearful noise escapes her instead, sounding as though it has come from very far away. 

It is too much to bear, though she knows it has all come from the inside of her own mind, and not his.  She can remain beside him no longer.  She is on her feet before she tells herself to move, standing so quickly that he must draw back to keep her head from colliding painfully with his jaw. She is striding quickly from the bed. She needs _distance_ between them; needs to not be able to feel the warmth of him beside her, but he is following her, a concerned crease in his brow.

“Marianne?”

_Oh God, she cannot breathe._

She turns, looks at him, sees him reaching to comfort her just in time to shy away and gasp out _‘No.’_   She does not know why she is doing this, when she has lain beside him in his bed for months on end without incident.  He has done nothing to send her from him so quickly, and yet she has gone from him as though he has struck her.

When she shies away he takes an immediate step back, looking stricken, and she feels utterly wretched, the tears that have come to her eyes meeting no resistance at all before they fall.

_Oh, why is she like this?  Why must she run from him, why do his kisses make her feel so very small?_

_Why did she never play the piano for him when he returned to her from his journey?_

She does not know, has searched herself time and time again and found no answer.  She only knows that she does not _want_ to shy away from him.  She does not _want_ to dread his kisses; his soft smiles and kind words.  She wants to smile for him without it paining her.  She wants to reach out and touch him as he does her, because she knows more than anything that it would make him so happy.

Her hand is over her mouth in a vain attempt to keep her mad fit of hysteria contained, and when she looks at his from under her lashes, the realization finally finds her.

_She wants to love him.  She wants it more than anything._

But she does not know how.  She has only ever loved one man before, and she cannot love her husband in the same way she loved Willoughby.  They are too different.  _She_ is too different.

And there are far too many memories shared between her and the Colonel.  She can think of far too many times she has shunned him, far too many moments she caught him looking at her just so, and chose to ignore it in the hope that he would forget.

Because she has known for a very, very long time. Has known since early days, since a field of reeds and a freshly sharpened knife.

Has certainly known since a walk in the rain that she wonders how he remembers.

And hasn’t she been unforgivably cruel to ignore it in favor of gaining a friend?  Hasn’t she toyed with his emotions just as cruelly as others have toyed with hers. 

Just as she finally regains her breath, it is once more stolen from her as she remembers Willoughby, remembers the wanting of him; the _longing._

And yet, after everything, it rings somehow hollow; empty.

There is nothing hollow in the Colonel’s longing for her; she knows it.  His eyes tell her that it is intense to the point of pain; his faithfulness says it is unshakeable.  And yet she stubbornly refuses it, day after day, night after night.

_Kiss after kiss, kindness after kindness._

And in that moment, she is truly disgusted with herself.  She does not _know_ why she cannot bear his kisses; his love. 

But she hates herself for it.

She rests her aching head in her hands; allows it to fall forward to rest against the window pane before her, the glass cool against her heated brow.

He is still standing behind her; she can _feel_ him there, and she wants to say something.  _Needs_ to say something, but she cannot.

_What is there to say?_

She can think of nothing, and she knows he will not allow her to stand by the window all night, for fear of her catching a chill. So she turns, takes care not to look at him as she makes her way to the bed, sliding slowly beneath the covers.

It is a long moment before he follows her.

When he does, when he slides in beside her and rolls toward her, it is like something is pressing against a tender bruise she cannot see.  It _aches._  

He is leaning over her, he will kiss her in only a breath’s passing.

“Please, don’t.”

_She hates herself for it._

She feels so very strange, so out of herself.  She wishes she could cry properly; the release of it would be such a relief.  But she cannot, only odd little tears escaping, one by one.

He stops, stays still, breathes above her, his lips not yet touching her brow; obeys her, lying back on the bed without a word. 

She never does fall asleep that night, nor does he, she thinks.  For while she will not turn to see him, cannot speak to ask him, she never once feels his arms come about her to hold her close.

That night she shivers.  The air has grown cold, and she now has nothing to keep her warm.

 ***

_The wedding breakfast is a merry one._

_The bride and groom freshly married, Elinor’s whole face glows with an easy sort of bliss that Marianne has never before seen her sister wear, as a modest number of guests mill around Delaford._

_Colonel Brandon is their benevolent host, and Marianne cannot help but feel joy rising in her as she looks bout the room and sees Mama, so proud of her eldest, Margaret dashing about, as at home here as she has been since Norland._

_Edward is gazing at Elinor with such extraordinary love._

_She remembers a night, a bed with her sister in it.  Elinor, so resigned to deny her own heart._

_She loves her sister._

_The tears come unexpectedly; too soon.  She is not ready, and so has no time to blink them away before they are upon her._

_Elinor.  How will she do without her?_

_Her sister has been everything steady and safe these past months, every moment since their father’s passing.  The days fly by her with unnerving speed now, passing her by as she wonders if she will ever catch them up._

_How will she manage without her sister to stand by her side?_

_She will be alone._

_She opens her mouth, only for a jagged breath to escape her, too loudly. It pains her._

_She is ducking away then, turning her head in the hope that no one has yet seen. She cannot cry on her sister’s long-awaited wedding day._

_She turns almost squarely into him._

_Her mouth opens, tries to make some excuse, but the words die, unspoken.  She can see it in his face, there will be no hiding her tears.  He has already found her out._

_“Miss Dashwood.”, he says quietly, under his breath so that the nearby Mrs. Jennings does not overhear.  She is a moment too slow in reply, for an instant not understanding whom he has meant to direct his words to before she remembers that the title of ‘Miss Dashwood’ is now her own._

_He has not simply called her in vain though, it seems.  He is offering his arm, offering a small, knowing sort of smile, and though she cannot smile back, she does take his arm because the alternative is remaining where she is long enough for Elinor to spot her tears._ _He draws her to an unattended doorway, releases her and allows her to pass through ahead of him, and then they are in a blessedly empty hall, quiet and peaceful after the business and clamoring joy of the party._

_He stands, allows her to catch her breath and attempt to regain even the smallest modicum of composure, and she tries valiantly to pretend that he is not watching her._

_“Come.”, he tells her, still quiet as though he is afraid of being overheard by the portraits that line the hall._

_She follows him._

_Down the hall, a turn left.  Down another hall, another turn left.  Partway down a third hall, and a final turn right.  Once again, he allows her to pass through the door first._

_She inhales sharply once she has._

_Oh, good God, she has not seen so many books since Norland.  Perhaps not even then._

_He stays at the doorway, does not follow her into the room.  Only tells her that he will say nothing of her departure until it is time for her to farewell her sister.  Tells her that she may do what she will with the contents of the room; that they are hers for the afternoon._

_And then he leaves her._

_She finds that she is still short of breath, even now, though not at all for the same reasons._

_He has so very many books.  She keeps perfectly still for almost an entire minute after he leaves, but eventually she regains control over her limbs, triumphing over her awe of his library. She wants to read the spines, to know their names.  She wants to know what Colonel Brandon reads in the evenings before the candles grow dim and he must light more if he wishes to continue._

_Does he ever light more, so caught up the words that he cannot bear the thought of abandoning them to the dark, just as she does?  She cannot imagine it.  Or perhaps she can.  He does read so well; she knows from all the days he has passed at the cottage, lending his voice to the task of entertaining her.  Do the words come alive in his mind for himself as well as they do in his voice for her?_

_Her fingers trace the spines, making their way all around the circumference of the room once, then again.  She finds four volumes of poetry that he has read to her these past weeks. This library; he has stood here, perhaps where she stands now, and chosen books from her._

_Not one of which has ever been read to her in another man’s voice._

_All is quiet now he has left her; all is still and so utterly removed from the celebration that carries on just rooms away, and she loses herself all too quickly.  The books call out to her, so she takes one whose spine is unreadable, a mystery to her, and turns to find a chair._

_A very fine pianoforte is nestled in the corner of the room._

_She has never heard him play._

_Mrs. Jennings has told her he plays very well._

_She cannot imagine it._

_But then, she never dreamed his voice would be so tender with written words either, before he set out to prove it to her._

_She sits.  Fidgets. Cannot tear her eyes from the beautiful instrument.  There are bright, large windows on either side of it, making the keys shine brightly, the white ones gleaming against the richness of the wood.  She wonders what it might sound like if she ever played it. If, somehow, it would have some of the tenderness of his voice inside its tones._

_She is certain she will never find out._

_She does not read even one word the entire afternoon, the book she has chosen resting idly in her lap.  She merely sits, feeling the warmth of the sun that shines in through the windows on her skin, breathing deeply and quietly in this room that he has made into a refuge for her._

_When he comes for her, softly, hesitantly, his facing telling her that he is hoping not to interrupt whatever comfort she may be affording herself, she rises, walking to the shelf and placing the book back in its home, unopened. When he holds the door open for her, allows her to walk through it before him, she pauses just as she steps through, turning to face him, to look at him and see what she can there._

_She gives him a small smile then, hopes that he sees it is genuine and sincere._

_She means to tell him thank you, as he leads her back to her family, back to Elinor to say goodbye, but the words never come._

_***_

She does not go down to breakfast the next morning. She is not hungry.

And she cannot face him. 

That night he is late in coming to her; so late, that she begins to wonder if he means to come to bed at all, or if he will simply keep his own chambers separate from hers from now on.

But he does come. 

He is very quiet when he does, and he keeps to the very edges of her vision, leaving her feeling as though he is always behind her, staring at her.

She waits for him to speak. 

He does not. 

He turns down the covers on her side, but instead of waiting here, holding them back for her, he walks around to his side and settles himself onto the bed without a fuss, leaving her standing in the near-dark, feeling—

_Alone._

Hollow, chilled, lonely, so very strange.

It is almost as though he has abandoned her, though she knows very well that she asked him, _commanded_ him only last night to leave her alone.

_To please don’t._

Her feet are growing cold.

She braces herself, wonders if he will kiss her goodnight once more.  Wonders how it will feel; if it will be any different with this new strangeness between them, as well as the quiet that has stretched itself over them since the moment they agreed to marry. 

When she slides beneath the covers she tries to do so with as little movement as possible, as though he might already be asleep and she must do her very best not to wake him.

She knows very well he is not.

She lies very flat on her back once she is settled, as still as she can possibly be, and she wills her heart to slow, because it is pounding as it has not since the last rapping of her knuckles given to her by her governess.

_She is waiting for it.  Waiting._

It is a long time before the bed creaks beneath him; before she can feel him shifting, bearing his weight on his elbow as he props himself up above her.

Her breath sticks in her chest, because oh God, there is a kind of dread that has built up inside of her all day waiting for this moment, this kiss that ended so very badly last night, and that dread has turned somehow into the strangest, tensest anticipation, she finds herself _aching_ with it.  She wants his lips on her brow so very badly, because then the tension will finally be gone, the ache in her belly will have eased, and she will be able to sleep.

But his lips never come.  He waits there, above her, and though she cannot see his face in the dark, she knows he is looking at her with those eyes that she can never read. She holds her breath, _waits_ for him, but he never kisses her.  He shifts once more, lowers himself, and he is lying beside her once again.

 All of the breath rushes out of her in one big gust, leaving her feeling exhausted, as though she has just run some great distance.

Her whole body aches.

She wants to cry, but she cannot.  Loathes the thought of tears, but knows that her eyes will never stop paining her until she cries them.

_She told him not to, and he has obeyed her._

She never does fall asleep that night. 

Her feet are still cold when morning comes.

 ***

_The days after Elinor’s wedding are long and lonely._

_Worse than when she was truly ill, because at least then she had had her sister to keep her company.  Now she has only Margaret, and Margaret knows nothing of her inner mind and heart in these past days._

_Though, to be fair, she supposes Elinor hasn’t much of an idea either._

_She has become a strange creature to all, most certainly to herself. Unknowable, untamable, untrustworthy._

_Some days she finds the cottage beautiful, quaint, poetic even; possibly romantic, if she would allow anything to seem remotely romantic ever again. But she will not._

_Other days it is her prison, locking her in on all sides, impossibly grey and rainy, inescapable._

_On those days, there is little her mother or remaining sister can do to bring her out of the dreary mood that seems to swallow her whole._

_Colonel Brandon’s visits resume exactly two weeks after the wedding._

_She knows she must look dreadful the first time he comes calling again. Her eyes, she thinks, must still have shadows beneath them from her lack of sleep the night before, and her hair is pinned very messily to her head, in constant danger of falling down over her shoulders, loose._

_She knows she is still too pale._

_But he says nothing about it, does not look at her as though he is shocked by her untidiness.  He stands with her outside, and they watch Margaret play, running to and fro in the mist that always seems to surround the cottage she lives in._

_He tells her the wedding was beautiful, as though she had been the one getting married instead of Elinor._

_She agrees readily enough.  Tells him that she has never before seen her sister so happy as she had been that day, her new husband close by her side._

_He takes his leave of her after barely a quarter of an hour, and she wishes him a safe ride back to Delaford._

_He returns again the next day, and the next._

_He has never visited her three days in a row, and soon enough it is four, five, a week, two, with only one day missed, and she is breathless, anticipating something either horrible or wonderful, something spectacular, because no man visits a woman so often unless he has something besides a kindly friendship in mind._

_She can hardly breathe for the sudden knowledge of it; the revelation that every moment between them has been leading up to something…something..._

_John Willoughby marries Sophia Grey._

_Thomas announces it over breakfast one morning, as easily as he had mentioned Lucy Steele’s wedding, only this time there is no mistaking the identity of the groom._

_Shakespeare is still sailing down the stream.  She imagines the pages floating, soggy, as Thomas goes on and on about where he heard the news.  She wants to laugh at the daydream, but does not, knowing her mother would fear for her mind._

_John Willoughby is married, and not to her._

_John Willoughby has fathered a child, and not with her._

_Colonel Brandon is walking up the hill to their cottage.  Margaret calls out his name from the table with glee, running out to meet him._

_‘Dear me, poor Brandon.  Will_ _none_ _of you think of him now?’_

_She can hear Sir John’s voice in her head as clearly as if he spoke the words only yesterday.  All of his silly little teasings, Mrs. Jennings always making unclever little comments about she and Colonel Brandon, they all carry so much more weight now. The book.  The piano.  Edward and Elinor’s parish.  The wedding._

_He has visited her every day these weeks since the wedding.  Only for a little while, and they hardly say anything, but he has been here, nevertheless._

_One of these days he is going to come to her with a question; she is certain of it down to her very bones._

_But she cannot think how she will answer._

_***_

A week later, and little has changed. 

They hardly see one another, and when they do, they are silent.

Part of her imagines that he means to punish her; that this silence is his way of reprimanding her for all of the many wrongs she has committed against him.

But a larger part of her knows better.

She told him no.  She asked him to _‘Please, don’t.’_ , and he is respecting her wishes.  Perhaps even against his own.

_She feels so very alone, and so very, very ashamed._

And he must be so tired.

He has spent so long coaxing her, being gentle with her, tender, making his own, patient sort of love to her through kind gifts and quiet visits, cherishing kisses laid to her brow, and now they are here, living together as man and wife, but as far away as if he rejoined the army and sailed off to the East Indies once more.

He must be so tired of _her._  

Goodness knows she is.

He mounts his horse one morning to ride into town, and she thinks nothing of it.  He does so nearly every day, seeing to the people he feels so responsible for, venturing all the way out to the little cottage that still houses her mother and youngest sister, playing with Margaret, paying kindness to her mother. Riding past the parish on his way home, asking Elinor if the Ferrars have need of anything, knowing that it would wound Edward’s pride to be asked directly.

He does so daily, pays such kindness to each and every member of her family _daily,_ that she thinks nothing of it anymore, except that he is far too good for her, and that she will never, no matter if she lives to be a hundred, deserve him.

She only thinks something of it when he does not return home.

***

 _The weather turns chilled, and he visits her for what, she can see as soon as he is within shouting distance of her, will be the last time._

_She stands in the doorway of the cottage, and she watches him walk up the path, and when she sees his face she knows, though she cannot say how, that today is the day he means to do it._

_She fights to swallow against a sudden thickness in her throat; forces herself to breathe, to gentle.  Turns and fetches an absolutely hideous monstrosity of a heavy, knitted sweater that Betsy has made for her, and drapes it over herself, stepping out the door to greet him, wincing against the cold, but gritting her teeth and swearing that she will not turn around and go back in._

_She will not be able to bear it if he asks her in that tiny little sitting room. She remembers waiting there for another proposal that never came, and she will not live in that memory a second time now._

_So she walks out to him, pulls the sweater tighter around her as he frowns, tries to urge her back inside.  She tells him no, tells him that she is longing for a walk, and she sees in his eyes that he is almost ready to go home and try again tomorrow if it might persuade her to return to the warmth of the fire that crackles inside the cottage._

_So she reaches out her hand._

_They have hardly ever touched in the few walks that they have taken together. Those walks have been solely for the purpose of allowing Edward and Elinor to take strolls together before their wedding, or at least, they had been for her.  He had taken her hand to help her regain her balance whenever she lost it, but now she has stretched out her hand with the purpose of taking a walk with her hand nestled in the crook of his elbow, and she watches his gaze fall to her fingers that have gone pink with cold.  He will, perhaps, think that she has meant it as a friendly gesture, something to keep him close by, but really, she just cannot bear the thought of watching him walk up the path again tomorrow, that something on his face telling her that he means to ask her to be his wife._

_Because she knows now that that is his purpose.  Knows it like she knows her heart is still beating within her breast._

_He offers her his arm, uses one hand to tuck hers into the warm crook of his elbow, shielding her fingers from the cold, and she thinks for a mad, fleeting moment that if he was a blanket, she would wrap herself up in him, he is so warm._

_They walk, and he keeps himself between her body and the wind, feeble though it is, and for a good long while they are as quiet as ever._

_She does not believe she has spoken even half the words she used to since she was ill, and he has never spoken many; at least not to anyone but Margaret._

_She wonders what he is thinking; wonders if he deliberated over his decision to be here today, to ask her not even a month after Willoughby has been married. Had that announcement shaken him as it should have shaken her?  He had visited her that very day and looked at her so very strangely, though neither one of them had said a word about it, both either too afraid to mention it, or knowing better than to try._

_She wonders if they will speak of it now, then hopes desperately that they will not._

_But most of all she wonders why he is here.  Why he has come to visit a girl who is too pale and whose hair is forever working its way out of its pins for the past many months without fail.  From the book to the piano, none of it has made any sense at all to her, and she does not think it will begin to now.  She has seen Delaford, seen that it is every bit as fine as Norland, perhaps even finer.  She knows what sort of man he is—the sort of man who rescues a girl who has foolishly run off into the rain; who will care and provide for a child who is the son of a man so low and cowardly._

_He is_ that _sort of man, yet he has come to her, and she cannot fathom why._  

_Does not want to fathom why.  It makes her head hurt._

_So she walks with him._

_They make a distant circle around the cottage twice, then start on a third time, before venturing out on a little path that had been one of Edward and Elinor’s favorites during their engagement._

_There is no chaperone with them.  She wonders if he notices, then quickly banishes the thought from her mind. What very little is left of her reputation matters only to him, so she finds little enough to worry over._

_They nearly reach the end of the path by the time he speaks of something other than the chill in the air, unreasonably cold for early autumn, or the new dog he has at Delaford that he knows Margaret will want to see._

_She is growing cold, despite the warmth of the hand that is held in his arm, and hopes he will not delay much longer.  Something wild inside of her still insists that she does not know what to answer, but she pushes it down roughly, telling herself that they must first get to the asking before she can think on the answering._

_And then they do.  They get to the asking._

_He tells her that he has heard of Mr. Willoughby’s marriage, that he hopes so much that her pain has been soothed a little by time and distance, and he looks so sincere as he says it, his voice sounds as though he has been aching for her this entire time, that she has a sudden urge to speak, to tell him that no, her pain was not so very great.  That the loss of a man who would abandon a young girl carrying his child is, in fact, no great loss at all, and that only the loss of herself has been the cause of her mourning._

_She blinks instead, and tells him that it has not been so very bad.  That she has had Margaret to distract her._

_He nods.  There is a distracted something clouding his face, his expression, betraying his thoughts to her as she watches him search for words._

_“Miss Dashwood—”_

_“You sound as if you are speaking to Elinor.”_

_They both stop, and she berates herself.  She should have let him finish, and then they would perhaps be through and walking back to the cottage by now._

_He corrects himself._

_“Miss Marianne.”  She is fisting and unfisting her unheld hand, trying to keep the numbness of the cold from it, and he eyes catch to movement, seeing the pinkness, how it fades to red near the tips of her fingers._

_He reaches out with the arm that is not holding her to his side, takes her hand in his, and he is so deliciously warm that she does not argue, instead allowing him to take both of her hands in his, keeping them warm against his palms._

_Her breath is a cloud in the air between them, his also, and they look at their joined hands for a long, spiraling moment, as though they have both found themselves dizzy all at once._

_The sight seems to decide him, and he shakes his head a little before telling her that he is certain she knows what he is about to ask._

_It will please him so much, he tells her—_

_It would be his highest honor, his greatest joy—_

_He will care for her always, he tells her, will care for her family regardless of her answer, but it would make him so very happy if she were to become his wife.  He promises to keep her safe and do his best to make her happy._

_She knows they both hear what he does not say; that he will love her, even if she never learns to love him._

_She says yes.  Tells him that she will, and the look on his face is one that will haunt her dreams every night until the wedding, and for nearly a year after._

_It is the look of a broken man who has just been given his first hope of ever being mended, something so wholly unexpected from a man who is constantly piecing her back together, and for a single, blinding, scorching moment, she finds herself unaccountably angry with him, and it warms her a little.  How dare he look to her for his mending when she herself is broken beyond repair?  Who is she, to know how to piece him back together correctly?_

_But then it fades.  Then she sees the softness of his eyes in that moment when all his stoicism has fallen down around him, the light that had shone from Elinor’s eyes the day Edward proposed now shining from Colonel Brandon’s as he looks down at her.  And she is so afraid._

_She does not know how to be so much to a man like Colonel Brandon._

_But she has said yes, so she imagines that she will just have to try._

_He walks her back to the cottage, stumbles over his words once more when they reach the door, and she wonders that a man who is usually so eloquent has been rendered nearly speechless by the prospect of gaining a wife._

_But then she thinks of his Eliza and remembers that he is, after all, a bit of a romantic._

_He kisses her hand as he says goodbye.  Holds the hand that had been so cold on their walk to his lips and breathes out a little on it as he draws back._

_She knits her fingers together and keeps his warmth hidden against her palms until his horse fades from sight as he rides down the road._

_***_

She begins to worry when luncheon passes and he has not yet returned.

When it nears supper and still there is no sign of him, she knows that something must surely be wrong.

She wonders if she should leave, should confide her worries to someone aside from the dear old housekeeper who refers to the Colonel as the ‘dear boy’ and asks her five times daily how she takes her tea.

But if she leaves, she will not be here when he returns. 

Finally, just as they sky is beginning to turn indigo and she is readying to venture to the parish and enlist Edward’s help in some sort of search, she hears men in the hall, the door closing behind them with a thud.

_There he is._

She runs, and when she sees him, there is a moment in which she does not quite _comprehend_ what she is seeing.

There is blood.

His man is wedged beneath his shoulder, keeping him upright as he limps to an armchair by the fire in the sitting room, and his face looks drained of all color.

“Oh, God.”

She does not realize she has spoken aloud until he turns his head to her as he half sits, half falls into the chair, moaning as he does so, and says in a voice that is rough with what she can only assume is pain “Do not worry.  It is not so bad as it looks.”

It takes his man all of five minutes to tell her the story.  A village boy, just learning to shoot.  A misfire in the trees, a musket-ball fired into the leg of a man riding on the road. The doctor has cleaned it, dressed it, will call again to do the same.  The leg must be tended to though.  It will need hot water baths, more cleaning to work the blood off of his ankle, exposed through his torn trouser-leg.

 _A misfire in the trees._  All she can think of is how very easily the same musket-ball could have lodged itself higher up on his body, deep into his chest where it could not be so easily dug out.

She seats herself in the chair across from him numbly as he sends the man away.

She says it again, “Oh, God.”, her fingers resting over her mouth, stunned.

He tells her once more not to worry, and she very nearly shouts at him. 

He has almost _died,_ and he tells her not to worry?

Will he never cease trying to spare her?

A maid brings a porcelain bowl of hot, steaming water and rags in, and Marianne rises to take it from her.  When the girl ignores her and makes to sit at her master’s feet, to tend him herself, Marianne snaps at her in a very uncharitable way, privately blaming it on the sight of blood, which has always set her head to spinning.

The maid leaves and Marianne lowers herself to the floor at her husband’s feet. 

“Marianne,” he says wearily, half a protest in his tone. “You needn’t trouble yourself.  It is only a fleshwound—” 

_“Hush.”_

She whispers it, as she would to a child with a scraped knee; reaches out, and as tenderly as she possibly can, rolls the leg of his trousers back to reveal the bloody thing that is his leg.

She thinks the water should probably hurt her hands as she dips a rag in it and wrings it out, but it feels only warm, though the steam is rolling off of it in waves.

He winces when she presses it to his leg though, his fingers curling harshly into the arm of the chair, bracing himself.  He is eyeing her warily when she looks up, the crease that makes its home between his eyebrows prominent in his features now, and for the first time she wonders at the maid, and how she had been ready to sit at her master’s feet without a hesitation, when that job should most certainly belong to a wife.

_But what of a man who has never had a wife before?  Who makes it their business to care for him?_

He shifts restlessly, hissing when she rewets the rag, bringing it back to his leg steaming again, his blood now swirling in the porcelain bowl.

“Does it hurt?’, she asks him softly, needing to break the silence that sits heavy between them.

He shifts again.

“It will improve.”, he tells her finally, but she knows it for the false comfort it is.  He has not answered her question because he does not wish for her to know just how much his leg pains him.

The fire is warm though, and his chair is comfortable, she knows, because it is one of her favorites to read in, so she keeps on with the rags and devotes herself to slowly coaxing red away from skin that is left shiny clean thanks to the heat of the rag.

She can only imagine what he must be thinking.

His cold, fractious, broken wife, the same one who shunned his touch, his kiss, only a week ago, offers up her own touch like it is nothing now as she cleans his leg, and she is sorry that they must both think on that.

Sorry that she has put that crease in his brow; that this little bit of kindness, this caring that should be expected from a wife is instead cause for a look of puzzlement from her husband.

She is sorry for all of it.

_She almost lost him today, and she cannot quite believe how chilled she is at the thought._

She only notices that her hands are shaking, trembling just enough to leave stray droplets of water on the floor beside the bowl as she wrings out the water from the rag a third time, and she swallows at the sight, realizes that her head has not grown dizzy with the sight of his blood as she had expected it to.

_He is her dearest friend, and he almost died today._

Her dearest friend, and regardless of his kisses, of the wedding vows that now distort every comfort he used to bring her until she can hardly recognize him, can hardly recognize the man who used to visit her every week to read poetry to her so that she would not be bored while she recovered from her own folly.

Her dearest friend, and she has shunned him, pushed him away so hard because his kindness scares her.  Because she is so ashamed of almost everything she has done since they day they first met, and she does not know how to make amends.

Her dearest friend, and she does not know why, sometimes can hardly stand to be near him because his goodness to her and her entire family, indeed, to everyone around him, makes her feel so small and ugly in her own selfishness and short temper.

He is her dearest friend, and he has gone quite silent above her.  She looks up, sniffs to arrange her features so that he cannot see how shaken she is, and sees him looking at her intently, that crease still there, resting between his eyebrows that have drawn together as she has cleaned his leg.

The blood is gone now, but she still holds the rag against his skin, because maybe if she tends to him for long enough, she can begin to repay him for all that he has done for her; for all that he has been for her, and for how cruelly she has pushed him away.

_She does not know how to bring him close; does not know how to teach herself to love him like a wife does a husband.  Does not know if she can._

Finally, she must pull away.  The rag is losing its heat, and the damp will not help the wound to heal.  She dries the leg with a clean towel, calls for the maid to take the bowl of bloody water away.

It is late.

“Do you want me to call someone to help you upstairs?”

He shakes his head.

“In a moment.”

She sits then, just at his feet, looking up at him and he down at her, and they meet one another’s gazes.

Does he know how he frightened her today?  That she was ready to go out and search for him?

She doubts it very much.

His hand reaches out, and she holds her breath. He has not touched her since that night, since she told him _no,_ and she has been caught by surprise by just how much she has _missed_ something that has always seemed such a trial to her, almost shameful.

He is going to touch her jaw, her hair; she knows he is.

But he does not.  He draws back at the very last moment, calls for a servant to help him up the stairs before she can say anything more about it.

She goes up first to make herself ready for bed by the time he manages the steps, and she is just finishing working the tangles out of her hair as the door opens to reveal him, propped once more upon a man as he makes his way to the bed and is helped into a nightshirt.

She does not look, but listens.  Forces herself to finish working at the last tangle.

The man leaves.

It has fallen to her, tonight, to snuff the candles, and so she sets about her task as soon as she finishes with the haircomb, feeling his eyes on her with every step.  It had occurred to her as she climbed the stairs to wonder if the doctor had given him something for the pain, whether whiskey or laudanum, and if it had been enough to cloud his mind or not.

Finally, all but one of the candles have been snuffed, the fire warm and smoldering as she makes her way to the bed. 

She snuffs the candle on his bedside table, then the one on her own, sliding into bed with as little movement as possible, loathe to do anything that might cause him pain.

They both sigh a little when she finds her place, settled at last on her pillows, and she turns her head toward his in the almost-dark.

“Are you comfortable?”, she asks softly, knowing his leg will pain him for weeks.

A long moment passes before he answers, and for a breath she thinks he has fallen asleep.

“I can manage.”, he tells her at last, voice strange with either the pain or the laudanum, she cannot be certain which.

“Are you certain?”, she asks once more.  “I was so worried, I—”

She stops, swallows.  He has turned toward her; she heard him move against his pillow.

“I almost went and fetched Edward to help me look for you.”, she tells him very quietly, an admission that she was not sure she would ever make, and she hears him sigh.

He tells her he is sorry, that he should have sent someone to tell her while the doctor was tending him. 

That he would never want her to worry.  That he is so thankful she did not go to Edward, because it is so cold out tonight, she would almost certainly have become ill. He says it with such feeling, as though the thought of her worrying over him makes him ache with regret, and that in turn makes _her_ ache that she should cause him any more pain than he already must feel tonight. 

“I  _am_ sorry.”, she gasps.  “I was just so worried when you did not return, I thought something must be wrong—”

She stops again, cannot go on, because her voice has begun to wobble, and she will not weep about this because she knows it would only cause him pain.

_Whatever she does, it seems, causes him pain.  Agreeing to become his wife most of all._

He sighs again.  “Do not be sorry, Marianne.”, he says wearily.  “I would have done just the same.”

The breath that she exhales at that is a watery thing, too noisy for the quiet dark, but his words have put her in mind of a lost girl in the rain, being carried home in safe, steady arms. 

She thinks, perhaps, he _can_ understand her worry after all.

And she can no longer bear this tension between them.  She almost lost her dearest friend this night, and if she had, he would have died with unhappiness between them because of her. 

She will _never_ let that happen again.  Whether she loves him like a wife should or not, she will never push him from her like that again.

So she tells him once more, tells him that she is so _very_ _sorry,_ and she thinks he knows what she is apologizing for, because he gives her a tender hum, as though cooing over a hurt child.

Her eyelids are heavy, but she is still shaken, wonders if she will find sleep at all tonight.

She thinks he is nearly there already. 

_He is safe.  He came back to her, just as he came after her in the rain.  He is alive, and so is she._

She is cold.

So she rolls closer, rolls until she is almost touching his side.

Hears him breathing, but remembers blood on her hands as she cleaned him, so she reaches down, finds his fingers with her own. She knows he is awake and can feel her, because his intake of breath has become just a little sharper. 

She can feel his pulse beating against her index finger.

And she draws his hand up to her mouth because he is in no condition to prop himself up above her.  She kisses the dry skin of his knuckles and tucks his hand beneath her chin just for a moment before she releases it, because he has frightened her so this night, and she is still shaken.

Before she can drift off beside him though, that hand moves once more, this time of his own volition.

_His fingers wrap themselves around hers, so very warm, and her eyelids flutter, startled by the touch._

It feels like forgiveness, though she has wronged him so frequently that she does not think she can ever be totally absolved.

But he has sought her out, and she him, and they are almost, _almost_ asleep.

Carefully, gingerly she rolls the last distance closer, just so her chin can brush against his shoulder, her head nestling itself into the hollow there as she seeks out something to keep the late autumn chill at bay.

He is so very warm.

He whispers “Goodnight, Marianne.”  His thumb strokes over her own knuckles, a gentle lull that is tugging her off to sleep.

Her right hand in his, her left hand finds a place beside her head, as though she is settling herself in to sleep, but truly, she wants it to rest on his chest where she can feel him.

She falls asleep to the beat of his heart against her palm, promising her that he is alive and safe.

She would have grieved too deeply to recover if he had died and left her all alone; he is her very dearest friend, and she knows whenever he looks at her that she is loved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave me a comment. I love feedback.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys.
> 
> So, wow. Here it is, and it's really nothing like I intended. I had a nice little outline for this chapter....that has now gone to hell....yeah. So, anyway, I hope y'all like the flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants version. These two are so very easy to torture, but I gave you guys some fluff before the pain, so don't say I didn't give you painkillers.
> 
> Don't forget to comment, cause I love to hear from you!
> 
> Roe

Things ease a bit, after the blood.

He has forgiven her for whatever fit of strangeness had previously possessed her, and she has banished that very strangeness as far from her mind as she can fling it, seeking to make amends by endeavoring to make the Colonel as comfortable as is possible at the beginning of winter with a musketball wound in his leg.

Margaret, of course, thinks it all most exciting and insists upon hearing the story from Colonel Brandon himself, but is left disappointed when he does his very best to paint the boy to blame as he truly is—a young man learning to fire a musket for the first time, not unlike the Colonel himself once was.

Marianne forgets this too often, she thinks; forgets both of these things.  First, that he was once young, second, that this cannot be the first time he has been shot. The doctor called to clean the dressing daily just after the accident, but now the wound is well on its way to being healed, and the task has fallen, by her own insistence, to Marianne herself. The Colonel offers to have a servant do it, to manage it himself, but for some unknown reason, both to him and to herself, she will not hear of it.  She finds herself unwilling to surrender the task to any hands but her own; not when he is injured and weak.  There is, perhaps, something astringent and cleansing that comes to her when she tends to his wound, cleaning it and rewrapping it in fresh cloths.  It releases something deep inside her chest very slowly, day by day, and each night when she sits at the edge of the bed and he lays his leg across her lap for tending, she thinks she can hear the distant fall of rain, can feel his arms wrapped tightly around her, carrying her to warmth and safety.

_Night by night, she is carrying him through the rain, and in turn the remaining chill from that horrible walk is leeching gradually from her skin, until she can almost forget its presence._

He helps her, of course.  She certainly does not know how to clean a gun-wound, and in all truthfulness, this task would be so much better managed by a man with experience in these matters.  But she is determined.  He directs her hand, tells her if the water is too hot, or not hot enough, teaches her how to swath his skin in healing white cloth.

His words and her hands, they work together at healing him, and slowly something between them seems to break apart.  There can be no silence here, in this place where she stumbles the moment his words fade away.  There can be no timidity, not when he is obliged to present his wound to her and she finds herself faced with his blood and pain.  She has no elegance, no swiftness; only her meager attempts at nursing his injury, painfully slow in the early days, easier as the nights pass, until they can talk of other things in between her questions and his reminders about his care.

There is a long, jagged scar along the calf the she tends to every night.

And unlike every other question that has ever puzzled her about him, she startles them both, and asks.

_One of the many unnamable walls between them has been irrevocably altered._

He takes a deep breath and tells her a story of the Indies; a story that she is certain would be far better appreciated by her younger sister’s ears, but that she listens attentively to, nevertheless.

A bayonet.  He had not been able to walk properly for nearly a month.

And as she wraps his leg for the night, tucking the cloth in tight and finally stilling her hands, she wonders, like a rain that has caught her by surprise, who tended his leg for _those_ months, when he had no wife and was so very far from home.

She does not ask him.  Merely stands, carefully lowering his leg to the bed, and snuffs the candles before climbing beneath the covers herself.

_Her head finds its place in the hollow of his shoulder, his arm cradling her against his side, and they speak no more.  Her pillow has not been of any use in days._

_***_

_She tells no one about the events of the day, goes to bed with the secret tucked close against her chest, and does not sleep long enough to dream._

_The only person she would think to tell now lives a long walk away, warm in bed with her husband in a house that belongs to Colonel Brandon._

_Warm in bed, in love with her husband.  Her face had shone so on her wedding day._

_She wonders what her face will look like on her own wedding day; what Colonel Brandon’s will look like._

_What will people see?_

_And how long will it be before she finds out?_

_***_

The first snow of the winter falls before the last November sunset has finished, and Marianne watches is out the window with her heart stuttering in her chest.

_It is beautiful._

She stands there a long while, so close to the window pane that her breath clouds it with each exhale, and she imagines what the cold would feel like on her skin.

_She wants it so badly._

But she will not.  It would worry everyone so, if she were to catch a chill.

And aside from that, the fire in the sitting room is crackling warmly behind her, and she can hear a page in a book being turned every few minutes, Colonel Brandon reading in the armchair near her back.

It will be Christmas very soon. 

“Has your nose flattened from pressing against the window yet?”

She watches her reflection form a small, amused smile against the night sky at her husband’s teasing, so new and wholly unexpected the first time it came, but very welcome.

_They are so much easier with one another now; now that she has washed blood from his skin and he holds her close to him as they fall asleep, warm as his dogs are, heaped together before the fire._

“Not yet.”  She turns so that her eyes meet his.  “Not _quite.”_

His expression is a small, indulgent smile in reply to her own.  “I’m glad.”, he tells her, humming a soft reproof at her when she kneels at his feet, making certain there is no remaining redness on the leg that is almost well enough to carry him with only a small limp now; the leg that is now certain to make a full and absolute recovery.

_All is once again well._

She asks him what he is reading, and he shows her a book of poems, turning pages idly, choosing one and reading it aloud to her.

They sit there a long time, the Colonel in his chair with his voice bringing poems to life for her, Marianne at his feet, her back against his chair, and if she closes her life and breathes very slowly she can almost imagine that it is just like before, just like Norland, everyone gathered around the fire for poetry or music to pass the night away.

But the voice can only be Colonel Brandon’s and it makes her smile, warms her on the inside because she knows he chooses each poem very carefully for her.

No matter that his eyes sometimes grow so soft that she finds it difficult to meet them, no matter that she knows he is restraining himself, keeping the weight of his heart from her so that she does not have to bear it just yet, she has resigned herself to the selfishness of reveling in just how very hard he works to please her; into _allowing_ his efforts to please her.  Allowing herself to be pleased with him.

And no matter how often he reads to her, she thinks she will never tire of listening to his voice.

*** 

 _She tells Elinor first._

_Her sister comes to visit the cottage that was once her home for the first time since her wedding, and Marianne can scarcely keep the words inside herself until they are left blessedly alone._

_When they are left mercifully to themselves, she feels her breath hitch against her throat and feels as though she is speaking a confession that has long been kept secret, a little ashamed and so filled with fear._

_Elinor listens well, and when the words have finally escaped in their entirety, she comes very close to Marianne and wraps her arms tightly around her._

_“Oh, Marianne.”_

_And she smiles._

_That expression makes Marianne’s breast hurt; it makes her tuck her strange, uncalled-for tears deep inside of her, not allowed to fall just now. Elinor tells her that she is so happy, that Marianne will be so happy, and she says it with such hope in her eyes._

_She does not speak of how happy she knows Colonel Brandon must be.  Both sisters already know, and the knowledge weighs heavily on Marianne’s mind._

_Colonel Brandon will be so pleased, even if he did not kiss her with all the passion of a lover at her agreement to become his wife._

_His happiness, the knowledge that it depends so very much on her, frightens her more than anything ever has in her entire life._

_***_

Margaret comes to stay.

Her sister has been begging, waiting with ill-restrained impatience since the day Marianne was married, for she idolizes her newest brother in law, who tells her stories from far-off lands and has been afforded a military rank of no mean stature.

And Marianne finds, that even though her younger sister does not have her confidence as her older does, it is still a relief to have someone from home to talk to.

And talk, they do.  Margaret has always chattered on seemingly without taking even a breath, and as Marianne listens, she wonders if she was ever so young and noisy.

She thinks she must have been, once; has memories of a governess wagging a finger at her, telling her that good girls should hush during their lessons and when company was about.

But now that she is older, now that it is _Margaret_ doing the talking, it is exhausting in the most amusing way.

Fortunately, the Colonel is more than entertaining enough for Margaret’s tastes when she wears her older sister down completely, until Marianne either finds her head aching or her mouth yawning.  Colonel Brandon takes Margaret riding, introduces her to the dogs, and spreads before her more atlases than Norland ever possessed. Once, he even brings out a handsome looking musket and tells Margaret that it is time the old thing was cleaned once more, enlisting her most willing aid.

Marianne laughs at them and tells them that they had best hope she does not take it into her head to tell Mama on them, but they both know she would never.  In truth, she has never in her life seen Margaret sit still for so long as she does to run a soft rag over the barrel of the Colonel’s gun.

At night, after Marianne _finally_ manages to convince Margaret to sleep, they sit together in the library and laugh at the memory of her younger sister’s antics, the Colonel happy and willing to hear stories of Margaret’s adventures from younger days, incredulous at the very most rambunctious.

Marianne pulls her knees up tight to her chest in her chair across from his, and resting her chin on them, whispers with a rueful smile that she was once every bit as high-strung as Margaret—perhaps even worse.

He laughs at her, says ‘ _good’,_ as though it gives him some satisfaction to know that his wife was once a heathen young girl who could not be controlled, and she shakes her head at him, still catching her breath and feeling a stitch in her side from her half-stifled giggles.

_She has laughed so much tonight, been happier than she has been in months in the days since his accident, when he has been kept to the house and in her company for hours on end.  She wonders that she ever thought him dull._

They are still smiling when they tiredly climb the stairs to go to bed that night.  She slides the pins from her hair while he sees to the fire, still adverse in some way to leaving the task to the servants, and they snuff the candles together.

She slides into bed and must stifle a groan at how wonderful the pillows feel beneath her after such a long day—she is so tired. 

He selects a book, makes his way to the bed and leaves a lone candle burning to read to her by, then opens and lends his voice to the words.

It is a love poem.

She listens well, does not way a word; his face tells her nothing as he reads, and she is sorry for it, would give almost anything to know what he is thinking now.

But soon enough he finishes, and she finds that she cannot ask it, so she leans close and lets him kiss her on the brow before he lies back and pulls the covers warmly over them both.

“Goodnight, Wife.”, he whispers into her hair as her head finds its place on his shoulder.

_Goodnight._

_***_

_Mama weeps for joy._

_It is like the great, swelling wave that Elinor’s happiness had been, only Colonel Brandon brings with him a certain amount of wealth, and while Mama could never be called a fortune-hunter, there is a tangible sigh of relief at the lift that is to be expected in their circumstances at the news of her middle daughter’s engagement._

_Margaret shrieks with glee._

_“I told you he liked you very much!  I told you!”_

_Marianne asks Betsy for a cup of tea, her temples beginning to throb._

_Her youngest sister is delighted at the prospect of a second brother-in-law, this one every bit as beloved as the first._

_Sir John and Mrs. Jennings are nearly apoplectic with the news._

_There is another luncheon, unavoidable, and of course, the guest list is the same as it ever has been—The Dashwoods, Colonel Brandon, and several of Sir John’s finest hunting dogs, along with Mrs. Jennings’ fluffy, yipping lapdog._

_Marianne is seated directly across from the Colonel at the table, and finds she can hardly stand to look him in the eye as the conversation ebbs and flows around them, a constant hum in her ears, driving all intelligible thoughts from her head._

_She does notice when the talk dies away completely, though.  She looks up, and finds several pairs of eyes focused on her expectantly._

_“You have not played for us in so long, Marianne.”, Mrs. Jennings eventually tells her, apparently taking pity on her drifting mind.  “You must play for us again!  And Colonel Brandon has the finest instrument in the county.  You must soon invite us all to Delaford, Colonel, so that Miss Dashwood may play for us on your pianoforte.”_

_Her mouth has quite suddenly gone dry._

_Mrs. Jennings; the woman has been trying valiantly to match-make them since the day they met, only now, after everything, Marianne finds that she has no stomach for it._

_She does, in fact, catch his eye as soon as Mrs. Jennings stops speaking, feeling something like dread in her own gaze.  It seems she has no choice, as they are both caught wanting for a suitable reply._

_She has seen the fine pianoforte at Delaford.  And there is now a smaller instrument in Barton Cottage._

_She reaches for her glass to wet her dry lips just as the Colonel places his on the table before him with great care, his eyes fixed on her own before she shifts hers away._

_Dear God—he is going to do it now, going to tell them, and then the whole village will know; Mrs. Jennings will make certain of it._

_She does not hear his exact words, not above the cruel buzzing that has resumed inside her head, but she hears him well enough to know that he says something pretty about her soon being no stranger to Delaford, looking at her with an expression that she does not care to read, all the while.  All of a sudden there is complete and utter mayhem at the table, Sir John rising to his feet and walking to the Colonel's chair to shake his hand for far too long a time, Mrs. Jennings cooing at a pitch that causes Marianne’s ears to throb, Mama smiling proudly._

_She will have no peace now until they are married; she knows it._

_But at the very least, she is no longer being called upon to entertain._

_***_

The house seems strangely quiet after Margaret leaves.

There is a peace to it, most especially with a fresh blanket of white, undisturbed snow covering the ground, and in the face of such cold they both oversleep, waking to a sun already settles into its place high in the sky, shocked at the brightness of the room.  She raises herself up on her elbows, peering out the window as well as she can from the warmth of their bed, and he rolls toward her, resting on his side and draping an arm over her, pulling her to him and proving shockingly warm against her back, still half asleep.

_How is he always so deliciously warm?_

They fall asleep all over again, and when they wake for the second time her hand is resting over his on her belly.  He closes his fingers over her own before they rise, drawing her knuckles to his lips before he relinquishes his hold on her.

 _They have eased so very much with one another since his wound, until it is no longer always so difficult to be near to him, and his kisses do not make her shrink with shame._  

That day is one of the loveliest they have shared yet, for they do nothing but read in the library, take lunch, and then read again. Marianne answers a letter that is long overdue, the Colonel sees to a small bit of business, and come afternoon, Marianne hears the scrabbling, clumsy sort of noise that tells her he has let the dogs in from the cold. 

There is one hound of the four that has favored her since the day they met, and it runs to her, placing its head in her lap for her to pet, then curling up quietly at her feet while the others persist in making fools of themselves.

The Colonel smiles at her, and she smiles back.

***

_She meets him all too often on the road._

_She walks frequently to Elinor’s, visits her sister as though she will never again be able to after she is wed, but while she once cherished to walk to and from the parish at Delaford, she now dreads it with nearly everything in her, because more often than not, she meets the Colonel on her way.  When he is riding, it is not so bad.  They merely stop for a moment while he asks her where she is off to, then each go their separate ways, his horse anxious to arrive at their destination._

_When he is walking, however, it is altogether a different matter._

_They stop, and he asks her where she is off to, just the same, but when he is walking he is free to fall into step beside her, seemingly unhurried by whatever task has called him from his estate, and whether they speak or walk in silence, she can hardly stand the long moments spent together._

_She can no longer look him in the eye._

_What little comfort she has learned to find in his presence is long gone from her, replaced by the deeply penetrating awareness that in months at the most, she will be his wife._

_The knowledge makes her head ache._

_Mama invites him to dine at the cottage often now, and he acquiesces more than he begs off.  She can hardly breathe from the moment he steps inside the door till the moment he leaves, the air in her lungs stolen from her by the sight of Colonel Brandon ducking his head to enter the doorway, seating himself at their tiny table.  She watches him amuse Margaret, listens as he tells her stories of military campaigns and journeys abroad, and she sees the flowers he brings for her mother._

_She remembers the flowers he once gifted to_ her.

_So many gifts from Colonel Brandon, she will never stop being indebted to him, and soon she will be his wife._

_Some days he visits the cottage like he used to, brings a book with him as though he plans to read to her once more, but she cannot stand the thought and begs a headache or some other complaint to keep him from her._

_She does her very best to avoid him at all times; knows that the moment he comes within speaking distance of her something cold begins to writhe unpleasantly in the pit of her stomach._

_She can manage the distance most every time—save for when she meets him on the road._

_Eventually, she learns not to walk._

_***_

The snow only grows heavier, and before long it has become impossible to venture out anywhere beyond a few strides from the house.

Colonel Brandon keeps to his study most mornings, consumed with business matters she does not care to pry into, and she finishes yet another book out of the library, but cannot find the desire within her to start another.

She is bored.

She knows herself all too well, knows that idleness has the unpleasant effect of making her terse and fitful when she allows it to fester, and so takes great care to guard her words when in the presence of her husband, having no desire to return to the tense awkwardness that stretched between them only a few weeks ago.

But days pass, then a week, then longer, and the snow does not lift.  There is to be no relief from the cold any time soon if the state of the view from the window is any indication, so she mills about the house, searching aimlessly for something to with which to occupy her time.

_She has not played the piano since that aching night._

She runs her fingers along the edge of it, fascinated by the smoothness of the wood.  The feel of it beneath her fingers takes her breath away, makes her wonder what has kept her from its music for so long.  Even as she sits on the bench, she is so very close to being too afraid to touch it, and as she stares at the keys, she thinks she knows now where the fear comes from— _She has never before heard him play._   How often has he sat here, fingers on the very keys that now lie so innocently before her?  What songs does he favor, and what do they sound like when he plays them?

_The piece he sent her had left her without a breath in her lungs._

But she has played it for him now, all the same, and she will play again.  The keys are warm when her fingers touch them, and for a moment she wants to draw back, feels almost as if she is touching _skin_ instead of ivory.

_Feels as though their fingertips are resting against one another as she ponders what she will play._

A chord, soft and hesitant.  Then another.  She cannot play his song again.

But she does know several carols.

_The holly and the ivy, now are both well grown…_

Without an audience the disuse in her voice is more prominent and it strains a little on each note, but she plays on, and when she is finished, she chooses another carol.

She plays for an hour, maybe more, and as she does she feels lighter than she has in months, perhaps lighter than she has felt in a _year,_ her fingers growing warm with familiarity, her ears no longer minding the slight hoarseness in her voice, lost in how it feels to be wrapped up in music once more.

She never notices her husband gazing at her very quietly by the door, suspended and unguarded in this moment when her eyes are fixed on the keys before her, bewitched by the music she is coaxing from the instrument.

_She never notices him, not when he looks at her like the world has ceased its turning to listen to her sing.  She did not see him the first time, months, and months, and even a year ago._

_Nor does she see him now._

_***_

_She tries very hard never to go into the village anymore._

_She goes once with Elinor to fetch some things for Mama, and shop-owners fall over themselves to help her find whatever she might need._

_Her stomach grows hot, her throat thick.  Elinor is beside her, of no importance at all to the fine people of Devonshire, but they all smile and simper at Marianne, vying for her attention as she tries to find the sugar Mama has sent her for._

_If only she had just let Betsy go for it instead._

_She is not accustomed to be flattered and waited upon as she is being now._

_Because she will very soon be Marianne Brandon, and every shop within walking distance is desperate to have Delaford as their patron._

_So she stops venturing into town, keeps to the house most days, forsaking the outside altogether, for if she walks into town she will only be congratulated and served as though she is a duchess, and if she walks the opposite direction she is all too likely to happen upon the Colonel himself._

_Except she has dress fittings._

_Mama has insisted upon a fine wedding dress, and yes, Marianne knows that it will not do to be married to the Colonel in her finest church dress, as Elinor was married in._

_But she loathes her fittings, all the same._

_The dress, she can already tell, will be beautiful.  It is so soft, so elegant, and is paired with such a long, flowing veil._

_She thinks it would make any blushing, blooming bride look a stunning vision on her wedding day._

_But she fears it will simply swallow her whole as she stands in the church reciting vows.  She feels too pale for it, too small.  And it feels far too heavy for her._

_She is afraid every time she is called upon to wear it, standing very still so that pins may be put into place._

_She sees the way they look at her; knows that they none of them see_ her _anymore, but Colonel Brandon’s wife instead.  She may as well live at Delaford already, it would make no difference now._

_She is terrified at the prospect—fears that the house will eat away at her until there is nothing left the moment she steps a foot inside._

_Fears that she will disturb it, break the fine home that is Colonel Brandon’s. Feels as though there is not a place in the world where she could possibly be more out of place than Delaford._

_She feels too tired, too broken to be the mistress of such a place.  Knows before she even begins to try, that she cannot possibly do it justice._

_The young seamstress’s assistant sticks her with a pin accidentally, apologizing profusely and looking up at Marianne with something like terror in her eyes._

_How awful for her, Marianne thinks idly, to be at the mercy of the wife of the most powerful man in the county._

_She says nothing, and the girl carries on._

_***_

He watches her strangely that night, and she cannot fathom why.

She can feel his eyes on her the moment they enter the bedchamber, and so sends the maid away early and sees to her hair herself.

_Works a comb sternly through the tangles that have formed in the curls that fall about her shoulders, vexed that there should be so many._

He is not snuffing the candles, instead keeping his eyes fixed on her—she can meet his gaze if she casts her own eyes into the vanity mirror.

She does not.

He rises, she can hear his footfalls, and soon he is at the shelf which houses all the books he has chosen especially for this room they share for hours on end while darkness settles over the landscape outside. A book is pulled from its place amongst the others with a _snick._  Then replaces.  Then another is taken.

Then replaced.

It seems he cannot decide which he favors tonight, and her hand hesitates in her hair as she listens attentively to his indecision.

He asks after her day; her day which was spent almost entirely in his library—her day which was comprised of reading and music, and with a jolt that ends in an almost ugly burst of heat deep in her belly, she realizes that this day has passed not unlike other days.  Days _before._

Days before Papa died, days before Devonshire. Days before Sir John, or Mrs. Jennings, or Colonel Brandon were ever a thought in her mind. 

_Days when John Willoughby lived as a nameless fantasy in her mind, a sacred ideal she held herself to with each and every breath._

This time the hand in her hair freezes, and she cannot recover its easy rhythm, and so does not even try.

Does not answer the question her husband has posed to her. 

Finally meets his gaze in the mirror, because she wants to attempt just once more to read the look in his eyes, though she has never been able to translate them before now, and they will no doubt baffle her this time, just as the others.

_He holds a single, small leather-bound book in his hands—hands that seem far too large for the volume—and he is staring at it as though he cannot read the cover._

She rises then, is finished with the comb because she can no longer coax her fingers into to guiding it through her hair, and walks to the edge of the bed, waiting.

 _Waiting._  

Sits on the edge of the bed, waiting for her husband to join her in it.

 _Wanting_ her husband to join her in it, because then he will snuff the candles and put the book down, and she will know that this night is just the same as any other.

He does join her, later rather than sooner, as he has delayed in putting the tiny flames that dance about the room to rest.

He leaves the last flame on his bedside table burning; a light by which to read the title of the book he holds in his careful, long-fingered hands.

 _Shakespeare’s Sonnets._  It is bound beautifully.

She cannot imagine what he intends to do with it; will not _allow_ herself to imagine.

Cannot breathe at the thought.

 _Why is he so strange tonight?  Why the deviation from the obscure poets she has almost never heard tell of?  Why has he chosen_ this _text for tonight, when his eyes seem so unnervingly bright and her body trembles so?_

She watches him open it slowly, watches him turn pages with an unbearable tenderness.

Was he so tender when he found her in the rain? When he lifted her and carried her home in his arms?

She does not want to know, but she thinks he must have been.

 _He has always been so very gentle with her._  

His fingers stop, the pages stop, and she waits, ears straining for the first inhale that will surely herald his voice.

But it does not come.

She does not want to look, cannot _bear_ to look, but in equal agony cannot bear _not_ to.

So turns her head to read the page his eyes are fixed upon.

There are words.  It reads like the memory of a dream.

_Love is not Love._

_It is an ever-fixed mark._

_The star to every wand’ring bark._

Her breath leaves her in a shudder. 

_Why?_

Her hands have been made into white-clenched fists in the covers atop her knees, which are folded as closely to her chest as she can manage.

He is looking at them. 

Does not open his mouth to read to her.

She almost wishes he would; wishes he would lend his voice to the words that have ricocheted around in her head, unstopping, for months and months on end, immune to any silencing.  Perhaps they would sound different in his voice, foreign and new, and then she would be able to forget the old and be enveloped by whatever reality the Colonel saw fit to carve for her.

But despite any wishes on her part, he remains silent, speaking not a word.

 _It is an ever-fixed mark, the star to every wand’ring bark._

She hates him, in that moment.  Hates his bed, hates his books, hates his home, _hates_ that he has taken her to wife.

_Hates that he is good and patient with her.  Hates that he is gentle and unassuming._

_Hates that he has a tender heart, determined to bestow its love upon fallen women._

_Hates that that very love now rests with her._

She hates him more than she has ever hated anything in her entire life. 

_And yet._

In that moment, that horrible, wretched, agonizing moment, he looks at her, and she thinks she _sees_ him for the very first time. 

Sees this man who has lain beside her night after night, yet never so much as touched her in an assuming way.

Sees this man who has been everything kind and generous to her family, to her mother and sisters; who has loved her, and lost her, and come searching for her in the rain to gather her back into his fold.

The page they are both looking at is old and worn. It has borne years of use, has a tear in one corner, a stain in the other that is in the shape of tears. 

The binding of the book, though beautiful, looks as though its ancient strength may give way at the force of only a little breath.

 _He has, perhaps, read this very poem even more times than she has._

For the first time, she imagines not the Colonel, but a very young Christopher sent off to the Indies, a sonnet his only token of a lost and despairing love.

She can hardly form the image in her mind’s eye, but she fights to do it, nevertheless.

She remembers every wretched meeting they shared before the rain, before the fever and the long, tedious recovery that brought him so close to her.

 _He is too old.  Too dull. Incapable of an attachment so late in life.  Incapable of feeling so deeply.  Incapable of loving so passionately.  Fit only for a nurse in place of a wife._

She is his wife, and in this moment of his hands splayed across the page, a beautiful, terrible look in his eye, there is more love, more anguish, more passion pouring out of him than she has ever felt, or indeed, dreamt of in her entire life—more than she can bear.

She thinks she will break beneath the weight of it; shatter into a million pieces, never to be recovered.

_He loves her so much, she never realized how much until now, though he has said nothing of it tonight, sitting beside her in their unconsummated marriage bed._

And no matter how very hard she tries, she cannot hate him for his love.

_She has vowed marriage to him; vowed love, and worship, and fidelity, and forever, and something holy and unshakeable binds her to him with a strength and power unapproachable and irrevocable._

He has beat her—left her bruised, and bleeding, and raw tonight, with only a small page full of unread words.  Battered her, when things were so easy between them before.

She does not know if she will ever recover.

And she knows what he is going to do, knows that tonight, in fact, is so very different from all the others, before he ever closes the book.

Knows that he is going to ruin whatever comfortable ease they have found between them.

He lays it gently on the bedside table, treats his treasured possession with such delicate care.

Looks at her, steals her breath from her once more, breath that she does not have to give, and then he is leaning closer and she cannot back away, is frozen, unmoving, wants so desperately to shrink back, but instead seems to be drifting closer.

Feels his breath on her lips the moment before his mouth folds itself warmly over hers.

_His hand is on her cheek, rough against her soft._

It is a simple kiss, unrushed, but over soon.

Almost chaste, and she has the eerie feeling that, just like on their wedding night, something holy in some way has passed between them with neither her knowledge, nor her consent.

_Something holy, and something precious._

Something that feels too pure for her half-combed curls and trembling hands.

He draws back a little, his thumb drifting to her chin, stroking the skin there, and she tries to keep her lip from wobbling. 

She fails to keep her tears from falling though, cannot hide them from the man who is so near to her, she can feel his breath ghosting across her cheeks. 

His brow, he leans it forward to rest against hers, and as thinly stretched and aching, throbbing with unspeakable pain as she is, she presses hers into his in search of sweet relief that he must surely know how to give.

_He rescued her from the rain.  Surely he can rescue her from this._

His lips kiss away the stray tears, and that tenderness only makes them fall faster.  She leans into him, feels selfish demanding so much of him when she has given so little, has cried tears at her husband’s first attempt to kiss her, but needs something to comfort her, and finds that he has been the only thing capable of such a task for months now.

The only one she trusts to carry her home when she has become utterly lost.

His arms welcome her, and she falls into them.  He holds her close to his chest and makes aching, crooning noises in her ear as his hands stroke up and down her back, and she cries like a child into his shirt.

She cannot remember the last time she wept like this. Does not _want_ to remember that she had been in London, and that her weeping had been over another man of much less worth.

His lips touch her hair, and tears turn to heaving, painful sobs.

He presses his cheek the crown of her head and does his best to soothe those too.

 _Do not cry,_ he whispers to her, tells her that he cannot bear her tears.  _Give me your pain,_ he begs her; begs her to let him take it upon himself so that she will not suffer so.

Whispers in her ear that he loves her without ever saying the words.

She knows.  She has known it for months.  Has known it, perhaps, since that very first day.

_It is an ever-fixed mark._

She feels unworthy.

She feels unclean.

She feels so tired and broken, as though he is the only thing keeping her from shattering into uncountable pieces right here in this bed.

_Tonight she needs his arms or she will surely be broken forever._

They sit like that all the night long, her husband holding her warmly in his lap.  She does not know if they ever drift off to sleep.  Only that his arms never let her go, and that her tears never fully cease.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! This one happened quick. Not entirely sure how I feel about this, but I don't think I can write it any other way, so here goes. Hope you enjoy, and don't forget to comment!
> 
> *Also, anything that you recognize is not mine, but belongs either to Jane Austen, Shakespeare, or the lovely crew that put together the 1995 movie.*
> 
> Yours,
> 
> Roe

She must drift off sometime in the small hours between total darkness and the very early, ash-grey morning, because her aching eyelids flutter open just in time to see the softest peach-colored light creeping in through the large window, preparing to bathe the room in its warmth.

Colonel Brandon stands very near it, dressing without the aid of a servant for the sake of not waking her, she supposes.

_Her entire body aches with a deep, throbbing pain; a soreness as though she has been beaten with bloody, unyielding fists._

Her eyes feel so dry, as if every drop of moisture has been cruelly wrung out of them, her head heavy and exhausted, the little sleep she has had only turning her restlessness bleary and hazed.

She watches him tend first to his shirt, then to his waistcoat, and her eyes drift, finding his nightshirt draped across the arm of his favorite chair.

_It had been so soft against her raw, hot face last night.  Soothing the small indignity of salt burning her cheeks._

He finishes with his waistcoat then, does not appear to be bothered with his jacket, and she is not fast enough when he turns ‘round to face her.

 _Her eyes meet his, and there is a moment of absolute stillness, breathlessness, when she is certain they are both thinking that he has held her close to his chest twice now.  Once in the pouring rain, and now to tend to her unrelenting tears._

He walks close to her side of the bed, stops when he is just at the edge and sits in the small space left for him next to her body. 

Touches her brow with cool, gentle fingers, stroking as a mother would a child with a fever.

Her eyes very nearly flutter closed again at the feeling.

He leans down, presses lips to her brow, then takes her hand in his and kisses her there too.

He tells her it is early yet, tells her that she should go back to sleep, that she should _rest._

Wipes the single tear that has fallen from her at his kiss with a tender thumb on her cheek. 

She supposes she will have to learn to stop that. She cannot weep at every touch of his lips to her skin. 

He tells her to sleep once more, then rises and makes his way from the room. 

She has already drifted off before he pulls the door closed behind him.

***

_When Marianne was a very small girl, her father once gifted her with a lovely, cloth-bound copy of Romeo and Juliet._

_She read it in a day, wept bitter tears over it, heart caught in her throat. And when she finished with it, she went back to the beginning and read it again._

_She cried that night in Elinor’s bed; wept to her sister that they should not have had to die, that they should have been happy—they loved one another so._

_Elinor called her a silly girl, shaking her head at her._

_But her sister had wrapped slim arms around her and comforted her, all the same._

_And so began an unquenchable thirst for Shakespeare, for words of love and undying passion.  Hamlet had been next, and Marianne nearly drowned herself in the stream at Norland, attempting to reenact Ophelia’s watery, lovelorn demise._

_To die for love…what could be more glorious?_

_She dreams of it at Delaford, dreams of being so young and free, so in love with the idea of love.  Dreams of old, dusty books and her father.  Dreams of how cold the water felt on her skin as she had sought to fan her curls out behind her just so, just like Ophelia._

_Dreams of Elinor holding her and calling her a silly girl, telling her that to love so much is not always possible._

_Her dreams are an unnavigable haze when she finally wakes._

_***_

She does not know what time it is when she finally wakes for good; only that the peach-colored sunrise has turned buttery-gold, and that she feels no more refreshed for the rest she has taken. 

She does not want to call for the maid, not now—her pride will not let her.  So she does the best she can with her dress and wraps the awful sweater from Barton Cottage around herself, both to warm her, and to cover up the poor semblance of refinement she has achieved.

She gives her hair up for a lost cause the moment she sees it in the mirror, knowing she will not triumph over it and so only pinning it back from her face, leaving it to fall down her back as it has not since she was a girl.

The servants will talk, but there is so much snow on the ground that they are guaranteed no visitors today.  The state of her hair will hardly matter much.

And besides, there is nothing she can do about the red, raw swelling of her eyes.  She is destined to be unseemly today, no matter how hard she tries.

Colonel Brandon is in the library. 

There is a chair in that room that he seems to favor over the desk in his study, and she pauses at the door for a moment before she enters, wondering what she will say if he asks her if she feels better for the sleep.

She sits.  He does not ask.

She is relieved.

He is working on a lap-full of papers, and she cannot bring herself to pull a novel from one of his shelves and read this morning, so she sits and simply watches him, watches the sunlight fall in a mist all about the room.  Listens to the sound of his quill scratching the paper as he writes.

It comes as a surprise to her when, after what she thinks can have been only a half an hour at most, the clock chimes to tell them the better part of the afternoon has passed.

He looks up at the sound, looks to her and frowns at her empty hands.  Perhaps he has thought all this while that there has been an open book in them?

She looks back, the fear of his eyes meeting hers somehow taken from her now that he has held her sobs close to his heart all the night long.

_There is little shame to be had between them now; at least, where the feelings showing in her eyes are concerned._

He lowers his quill.  Looks to her with something new in his eyes, something knowing, and feeling, and—

 _Caring._  

Apart from the love kept so carefully from her, yet still always detectable in him, there is a new sort of ache in his eyes when he looks at her now.

A concern that she thinks he will not be easily swayed from.  A caring that is quite unromantic, entirely selfless and makes her feel as though he holds the pieces of her in his hands, attempting to puzzle out how they should fit together.

She supposes that if anyone will know, will be able to decipher their pattern, it may as well be him.  After all, _she_ has never been able to.

She knows this change, this addition to the heaviness of his gaze when he looks at her, is the product of her tears last night; the stark fact that he held her and soothed her as she shattered to pieces at the feel of his lips on hers bright and glaring between them.

He seems to be considering, weighing some thought that has entered his head to test its validity, then tells her that she should play. Motions to the piano and says it has remained quiet for far too long.

_Tells her that she sounded beautiful last night._

Oh God, he heard her.  It had been so easy to forget, wrapped up in music and kept warm and content by the feel of familiar ivory beneath her fingers, that his study is only a door further down from the library. _Of course,_ he heard her—and now she knows.

Knows that the kiss was a return for her music, knows that he has longed to hear her play, had gifted her a pianoforte for that very purpose, and that when she had done it he had loved her for it.

_She wants to scratch at herself until she draws red, pulsing blood; wants to cause pain, because she has proven incapable of repaying him for even the smallest of kindnesses he has shown her._

He is, she knows, seeking only to be kind.  Seeking to occupy his young wife while he is caught up in necessary business matters, but she feels so weak at even the mention of calling upon her fingers to coax music from the instrument that was such a delight to her only the night before. 

She has no more music left in her for today; spent it all last night, first sending notes into the air around her, into his study where he apparently heard and loved, then crying tears in his arms like a wounded child.

She sucks in a rough breath, tells him _no._   Wants to tell him that she is tired, but she slept to long this morning to give that falsehood a ring of truth.  Wants to tell him _anything_ to chase all thoughts of her music from his mind, because she knows, deep and resonating inside of her, that he loved her for it at the first note he heard her play last night.

Cannot bear the ghost-sensation of his fingertips against hers as she plays the keys that have surely been commanded by his own hands many, many times.

 _She has, all unknowingly, taken his love in her untried hands and taken comfort from it without giving anything to him in return._

She tells him quietly, a little desperately, that she _cannot._   Wills him to understand that there is no music left in her; not now, after last night. After demanding the comfort of his arms and offering nothing of her own in exchange.

He only looks at her, nods, and though he has said nothing of the sort, given her no contempt or disappointment to reckon with, she feels as though she has wronged him in some way, even in this.

“But—but perhaps _you_ should play.”, she tells him in a voice that has been reduced to little more than a breath.  Looks to him and tells him that idleness does not suit any instrument.

Reminds him in a way that puts her in mind of Mrs. Jennings that she has never, in fact, heard him play. 

And hopes it is atonement enough, because it is all she currently possesses to give.

He raises an eyebrow at her, and she wonders whether he means it as an inquiry or a refusal.

Scratches a few more marks into the paper on his knee.

Then lays his quill and paper down beside him, rises, and walks to the pianoforte.

Tells her that he has not played in years.

She is almost breathless with it, dizzy at the knowledge that he held her to him last night to hush away her tears, and will play for her now because she finds herself too weighed down to even attempt such a thing as music.

She is fixated on him as he stretches out his long fingers atop the keys.  Unable to tear her eyes away as he seems to hesitate, to measure the weight of the notes before him, the warmth and feel of them.

_Does he feel her fingertips, just as surely as she felt his?_

There is a note, almost as suddenly as if it has been played on accident, but it is followed by another and then another, and they are forming a gentle melody.

His hands, his long, elegant fingers seem to have been made for this very task, and soon the notes are fading into something blurred and cloudy in her mind as words tumble into her mind, her eyes fixed on his hands as they play for her.

_More music in his little finger._

Those hands gifted her flowers once; showed her a kindness that she had not repaid with enough thanks in return.

_More goodness in his little finger._

The notes are so delicate, as though he knows she will crack under any great assault.  He is not playing to make music, to exercise his very fine instrument. He is playing for _her._   Making music with which to entertain her.  Coaxing notes from a pianoforte so that she, in all her weakness and exhaustion, will not have to.

_More passion in his little finger._

And it is lovely music, truly.  Music that steals her breath from her and would make her fear for tears in her eyes if she did not know that she has cried every last drop in her body already.

It is lovely music, and it is music that _loves her._   Music that he wraps up in his long, steady fingers and gives to her as a love-gift.  Music that simultaneously breaks her heart and mends it, because oh, how could she ever have thought him incapable of any great feeling; of any passion?  She has known her own folly, known it for some time now, but when he does something like this, when he shows her a poem he has treasured close to his heart for years and years, ragged with all the aches and loneliness of a man denied his love, when he brings notes to life in a way that is so high and sweet, she thinks that there is more passion in him, more love than she has ever borne or ever will.  Knows herself to be the greatest of fools, because when he shows her this side of himself, this hidden portion that he keeps tucked away to ease her mind, she knows that she has known nothing at all of love in her entire life.

And that he, above all other men, has known the very greatest and truest that may be borne.

He plays for her, and she listens. 

She listens as he loves her.

*** 

_She remembers walking in the rain._

_She can feel it falling on her, soft as kisses, then harder; harder like a lashing beating against her skin._

_Is there any felicity in the world superior to this?_

_Her lungs are burning with it, her skin tingling, frozen.  Every last bit of her is brought to almost startling clarity, and in this moment, she is transformed completely into the bright, ecstatic pain that is passionate life._

_And then she falls._

_The pain is dull now, instead of the myriad of colors it was only a moment ago. It has settled heavily in her ankle, and she knows without even trying that she will not be able to walk._

_Margaret has not moved two steps in the direction of help before she hears the pounding of hooves growing near._

_And he is there._

_The rain is a pouring, unrelenting deluge, and he is beautiful in it, a fierceness to him that she has never met in any being before._

_A wildness that feels like the match to her own._

_She feels a jolt of something near-manic that she cannot name as he comes closer, as his voice makes its way to her.  Feels icy cold dislodge itself in her ankle as his hands grip her there._

_Feels a quiver of fear, a knife-edge of alarm at his nearness, and knows it to be exquisite._

_He lifts her as if she weighs no more than a dried leaf, and she allows him to take her home._

_At that moment, she knows the absolute, weightless terror of believing that she would allow him to take her anywhere._

_***_

He remains at the piano long after the song has finished, and she studies him while he lingers.

The furrow in his brow—one of many, but the one nestled between his eyebrows—has deepened with something she cannot be sure of; some feeling she does not want to presume.

She wonders if she will have one like it someday. 

“You—”, she begins, breaking off when she discovers a hoarse crack in her voice.  She rallies herself, forces her throat to ease, her voice to steady.  The pain that has settled, dull and throbbing in her chest slowly unknotting.

_His hands have creases too, she sees.  Lines, like his face; and like his scars, she wants to know how he got them._

She tells him the song was beautiful.  Wants to tell him that his music has put hers to shame, but finds that she cannot, because it is not truly the music. 

It is the _feeling._

And how very cruel is that irony, that Colonel Brandon of all people should be the man to prove he possesses the deepest, most all-consuming ability to love steadfastly of all, and that such a gift should be directed at _her._  She once deemed his heart already cold in its grave, but now she thinks that she will never have such a capacity for passion as _he_ possesses.

He is quiet, seems unnerved by the music his hands have wrought, and she watches him rise, making his way to the window.

_What is it that he sees?_

His hands are clasped behind his back, left fingers gripping the right, and some remote part of her finds it within herself to be brave and join him at his view.

The grounds are nothing but white.

She thinks of Elinor, of the sweet parish that is so much smaller than the great house she now finds herself in.

“Do you think they are nearly buried out there? Edward and Elinor?”

He does not know, but assures her that the Ferrars have firewood aplenty and shall find some way to pass the time.

“You play beautifully.”, she says again, softer now that they stand so close.

A hint of what could become a smile plays at the corner of his lips.

_They had been so very warm last night._

“So do you.”, he tells her.

And then leaves her to the wintery view. 

***

_“Without a doubt, mine is one-hundred-and-sixteen.”_

_He is here, in their sitting room, and he is taking her breath away._

_John Willoughby of Allenham._

_He makes her feel taller, more elegant; makes the pokey little cottage he finds himself in seem all the more charming for his presence, as though he has cast some spell over it and all its inhabitants._

_He carries Shakespeare faithfully in his pocket, and his romantic tendencies make her feel more justified in her own, vindicated, after Elinor has told her for years and years that she is a silly child who does not know the first thing about love._

_“Let me not, to the marriage of true minds…”_

_True minds.  He is her perfect match in every way, the fire to set her spark ablaze, and she thinks she is half in love with him by the time she, Mama, and Elinor are watching him disappear down the lane._

_No—she knows it._

_And she never could love by halves._

_***_

She stays very still that night, sitting upright on her pillow as he sees to the candles.

She does not know what she should expect. 

Three candles left, then two, then only the one.

_Darkness._

The bed dips beneath his weight.

She turns so that she is facing where she thinks he must be, her ankles keeping warm beneath her as she sits on her knees.

Her lips part as she waits in some petrified anticipation to find out what he has in store for her tonight—she thinks that if he could see her, see her lips, their pose would look like a welcome.

_Perhaps._

He is slow tonight, careful with the covers, drawing them up into his lap, making certain she has her share.

_She does not fear the cold; knows that he will keep her warm throughout the night._

She is still waiting, shifts with a suppressed flood of impatience, and starts when the movement sends her hair falling over the front of her shoulder. 

_She has sworn to herself that she will not shed a single tear this night, will not pull away or push him from her.  In truth, she has no wish to.  The startled pain of it, of his closeness and affection, however much there once had been, has now passed, gone from her with the falling of too many tears._

He does not move though; is still and silent, and if there were any light to be had at all in the room, she thinks he would be staring at her, and she at him.

She wonders what they would both see.

But perhaps, perhaps he can see, if only a little, because she starts once more as soft, unthreatening fingers find her shoulder, find the hair that has fallen there, and slide through it like water through cupped hands.

She catches her breath.

Feels his touch long after it has gone.

He must be very close, she thinks.  Close enough to see the curls of her hair, close enough that she can hear his quiet breaths.

And then he is backing away.

It is so quick, so sudden and inexpressibly tender, even to herself, the loss that falls over her when it becomes clear that he has no intention of repeating his ill-met actions of the night before. 

 _She does not_ want _him to kiss her, feels pain at even the idea of his lips on her, and yet—_

She gasps with the loss of it.

 _“But—”_ , she protests in spite of herself, and then gasps again, because she never meant to speak it aloud.

He stops short.

She can only imagine what he is thinking now, can only envision the expression he wears, or indeed, the one on her own face. 

Is grateful he cannot see her.

And is then promptly thrust into revealing light as he relights the candle that rests faithfully on his bedside table.

A little cloud of light dances between them now, trembling as the tiny flame dashes from side to side at the insistence of an undetectable breeze.

She has no hope of reading his face.

His hand, it is at her shoulder again, slow and careful as he takes one curl between his fingers, caressing it.  She watches first the movement, then the creases that are deepening by the moment on his face, and all the while he never takes his gaze off of her.

 _His eyes are fixed on her expression, as if he is attempting to read her as surely as she wishes she could do with him._

Her curl is still winding itself around his index finger. 

Unbidden, there is a memory.  Another, younger man, and a tiny pair of scissors.  A curl, identical to the once her husband is cherishing now, being snipped away.

_A kiss laid to it, a promise of adoration shining out to her from determined eyes._

She is weary, so weary of the memories and likenesses. Thinks she will never cease feeling unclean in her husband’s bed.

He is still studying her, and she wonders if he can read her mind, can tell that her thoughts have wondered far from him and to the affections of another man.

_Surely not._

“But what?”, he asks in a tone that is very near a whisper; a caressing, gentle thing, well-suited to the shimmering light that falls delicately around them.

“I do not—" 

He shushes her; shakes his head at what they both know is the beginning of a falsehood.  She wants, absurdly, to laugh—thinks she might instead weep, and in the meantime is struggling for breath.

She does not know what to say.

 _But what?_  What, indeed.  If she but _knew,_ she would tell him!  She likes this ache no more than he, does not favor the tears she sheds at his slightest unanticipated affection.

Knows only that he has kissed her once, kissed lips that had never before been touched right here in this bed—in _his_ bed, and the sweetness of it, the knowledge that the brush of his lips on hers had been filled with enough love and longing to burn brightly even in the pouring rain, and her inability to set her own heart to burning in reply, had brought her to an agony of tears.

And now the loss of what she assumed, _anticipated_ even, would be a second kiss, has made her ache forlornly high in her chest, leaving her feeling unpleasantly hollow. 

_He plays the piano so beautifully; takes the notes in his hands and treats them just as tenderly as the words he reads._

“Is it your favorite?”, she finally asks him in a whisper of her own, feeling as though she is treading on very thin, dangerously breakable ice.  “Number one-hundred-and-sixteen?”

_The star to every wand’ring bark._

He considers her for a very long moment, seems to swallow and weigh his response.

Finally, there is a nod.  Yes, he tells her.  Yes, it is his favorite and has long been.

Is it hers?

Oh, what a question!  _Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments…._ Once, her answer would have been simple.

Yes.

And then no.

It has been long-cherished, kept close to her heart.

It has been flung from her as far as she can manage it in recent months, desired never to be seen or heard again.

She knows it as well as she knows the feel of her fingers on piano keys or the sound of pages turning in a book.

_The sweetness of a cool rain falling on her skin._

“I cannot tell.”, she eventually breathes, caught up the sensation of his stroking hand traveling from her curls to rest at the place where her shoulder meets her neck, her pulse. 

_She has been wed to him for months, they have shared a bed every night, but this is the first time the idea of a marriage bed truly rings with truth inside of her._

She feels so small when he looks at her, when his eyes seem to swallow her, absorbing everything that she is and surrounding her completely.  Feels as though she can hardly remember what it is _not_ to be his wife.

“I am sorry I wept.”, she tells him in a voice that has gone suddenly hoarse.  It feels just like forcing a thank you after a fever has been broken.  “I am sorry, and I did not mind—not truly—”

She cannot continue, but he is good and wise and has listened to her well.

He shakes his head at her and tells her not to be sorry. She thinks, if he did not fear reminding her of her strange and sudden grief, that he would be begging her once more, pleading with her to give him her pain and tears, to allow him to bear their weight instead of attempting to do it herself.

She can see it in his eyes.

And she knows. 

_There once was a girl named Eliza, whom he could not save.  But now there is Marianne, broken, battered.  Fallen in her own way.  How desperately would a man fight, she wonders, to save a second love from the fate of the first?_

So she will not try to convince him that they were silly, inconsequential tears last night.  She will not do him the disservice.

She will not push at him, will not shrink from him. 

She _will not_ despise his love.

He has given it to her as a gift, and she will do her very best to cherish it in whatever way she can.  She cannot bear the thought of her foolish tears last night sending him from her now.

So she takes his hand.  Reaches up and takes the fingers that have rested at her pulse between her palms.

Dregs up bravery from her very depths, and presses a kiss to his knuckles.

_Prays that he sees she is trying, because her courage has nearly run out._

And he does.  He sees, she knows, because his thumb strokes the hands that hold his.  Because his other hand is coming close to her now, cupping one cheek as his held hand works gently to be free so that it may cup the other.

He tilts her head back, and leans very close; close enough that she can feel his nose brushing against hers, and the last thing she sees before her eyelids flutter closed is his own gaze, dropping to her lips.

One more moment of just their noses touching, of his fingertips at the line of her jaw, and then suddenly he is there, kissing her, and it is not at all like the first time.

_He is warm, and his lips are soft and dry.  This time they do more than touch, pressing into her with a tender insistence, cherishing her for a long, stretching moment before he draws back._

When he does draw back, it is slowly.  His lips leave hers, and for the merest second, only a heartbeat, their brows rest against one another as she desperately tries to remind her lungs what it is to breathe.  He has kissed her, not as a kind husband seeing his wife off to bed, nor as a sympathetic friend who must love his woman in chasteness because she is a young, wounded thing. 

He has kissed her in the way she has always desired to be kissed, and the thought strikes her like lightning across a dark sky.  The press of his lips against hers with an edge of urgency she has never sensed in him before this very moment, awakens something long-forgotten inside of her.

She is left gasping, swaying where she sits, and he holds her steady.

When he draws fully back, there is something new in his face, the longing expression to match the urgency she has felt in his kiss; the string that has been pulled so very tightly between them.

But he is calm, and he lies back on his pillows, pulling the covers over the both of them as she does the same.

They do not nestle quite so close that night as they fall asleep, restless, but it does not matter.

She has his kiss on her lips, and it is a feeling she will not soon forget.

***

_Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days can be more than enough for others._

_In the case of Willoughby, however, a scarce three days are all that is required before Marianne swears that she will never love another._  

_He calls on her nearly every day.  Courts her with sonnets and pretty melodies hummed in her ear.  Wildflowers._

_She loves him._

_There is no thought of another, no thought of_ others _at all. There is only him, and his romantic passions, and the way she is drawn to him as surely as a moth is drawn to a flame._

_She cannot bear to be without him._

_They drive through the village often, though he does not heed where he is going because they are too busy gazing into one another’s eyes._

_They keep to themselves at all gatherings, and Sir John and Mrs. Jennings are made bearable by his company._

_And then…_

_He takes her to his home; takes her to Combe Magna._

_It is tall, and dark, and requires a good dusting.  There are shadows that paint pictures that are almost beautiful on the floor._

_His large hands grip her about the arms, a light glinting passionately in his eyes, and she follows him like an apostle trailing after Christ._

_When they return, she is no less a maid.  There has been no impropriety between them, save for a tense, delicious moment in which he had whispered pretty things in her ear, close enough for his lips to touch the fleshy lobe._

_But nobody knows it for certain, and nobody ever will._

_She swears over and over that there has been nothing improper between them, that it was all innocent and no different from a drive in the country._

_Willoughby says nothing, and she_ admires  _him for not feeling the necessity of justifying himself to the rules of propriety._

_That very day, Colonel Brandon leaves them in a great, frantic rush, a keen sense of combined relief and horror rushing through him._

_Marianne Dashwood, however, is too in love to take notice._

_She asks Mama if she may stay behind from church, and permission is gladly granted._

_Tomorrow, she is certain, Willoughby will propose._

_***_

She visits Elinor once more. 

She does not like to admit it to herself, but she has been avoiding her sister’s house since the day Elinor told her she was with child.

The knowledge stirs up strange things within her.

But this morning she awoke with her husband’s arms wrapped tightly around her, his face nestled into her hair, his knee pressed between her own, and while she had held very still, he had eventually woken also, and the extrication of their limbs had been near-unbearably awkward.

Elinor brews her a good, strong cup of tea, and finally, in a shameful rush, every errant thought and tense fear that has befallen Marianne in the days since the break of her fever tumbles out of her, uncontrollable. 

But she does not weep.

Elinor listens, has always possessed good and capable ears, and when Marianne has finished, her sister pours her a second cup of tea.

Marianne tells her sister, her voice weary with the exhaustion of one who sleeps nearly every night without rest, that she does not know what to _do._   She had not imagined when the Colonel _proposed_ that his love would run so deep; that she would feel so consumed by it, so wrapped up in it until she can hardly remember what it feels like to live without awareness of such a thing.

She tells her sister, very quietly, that she married him in the strange hope of making him happy, of repaying some small part of the enormous, ever-growing debt she owes him.

_She married him because though he frightened her, unnerved her, seemed always to place too much tenderness upon her, he was the only one in the whole, terrible affair who never once looked upon her with a shadow of blame._

But it seems that no matter what she does, she is always causing him some pain; is never enough to match the unending love that he seems to harbor for her.

And Elinor coos at her.

“Oh, Marianne.”

Her sister, in an astoundingly similar manner, shakes her head at her and calls her a silly, foolish girl for the first time since Marianne was allowed to wear her hair pinned up off her neck.

Elinor tells her that the Colonel is spectacularly patient, that marriage is a tricky thing, and that sometimes love creeps in gently.

But Marianne _knows_ all this.

What she does not know, is this:

_Elinor sits quietly, never so grateful in her life as she is now to her sister._

_“Sir John, might I play your pianoforte?”_

_Marianne is many things, a good deal of them unseemly, but they are sisters, and Marianne has never failed her once when she truly needed rescuing._

_Her sister plays on, so very charming in the sunlight, and Elinor listens to the song intently until she is disturbed by a creaking noise from the direction of the door._

_Her gaze is arrested the moment she turns._

_The man is old, tired; has borne many a care, and is now worn and heavy with them._

_She watches him watch her sister, watches him struggle for breath._

_Sees him jolt when the music fades._

_In the weeks that follow, she pays great attention to Colonel Brandon. Takes care to learn of his ways and of his past._

_Can conclude only that he is the kindest and very best of men._

_Elinor does not believe in true, deep, abiding love at first sight—she is not the romantic Marianne is._

_But the Colonel has yet to cease watching her sister, has yet to make himself known to her, indeed, but always seems to struggle just a little harder for breath whenever Marianne is present._

_When Willoughby comes, the Colonel distances himself a great deal.  Never ceases keeping a watchful eye over Marianne, but never approaches her again._

_When they meet him in London he is weary, years older in appearance and so very sorrowful, that Elinor thinks she would do almost anything to ease his pain._

_He flinches when he comes face to face with Marianne._

_When her sister falls ill, when it is publicly known that Willoughby has abandoned her for another, richer woman, the Colonel is the first to offer his unreserved support._

_And he tells her a story of absolute horror._

_When Marianne ventures out in the rain and does not return, Elinor’s heart leaps sickeningly into her throat, swelling there in a panic._

_When she sees the Colonel out the window, her sister in his arms, she nearly weeps, because all this time, Marianne has been right._

_There is nothing so glorious as true, longing, enduring love, even in the face of devastating tragedy.  Seven years could be sufficient for some people to fall in love, or seven days, or the duration of a song sung at a piano._

_There is such a thing as a man who loves beyond all hope or reason, a man who loves where all good sense tells him he should not._

_There is such a thing as a perfect, faithful, romantic hero._

_Only, Marianne has has been mistaken about in which direction to look._

_***_

Marianne retires early that night, long before her husband.

She is thoroughly shaken by Elinor’s revelations.

The book of sonnets is still on his bedside table, and she takes it in her hands and turns to one-hundred-and-sixteen.

_Let me not to the marriage of true minds_

_Admit impediments. Love is not love_

_Which alters when it alteration finds,_

_Or bends with the remover to remove:_

_O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,_

_That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;_

_It is the star to every wandering bark,_

_Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken._

_Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks_

_Within his bending sickle's compass come;_

_Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,_

_But bears it out even to the edge of doom._

She reads it for the first time in months, only this time she does not picture some romantic, tragic Romeo.  She does not envision Willoughby.

Instead, she sees only her husband, for he is there.

_As clear as a portrait painted of him.  It is an ever-fixed mark._

And she finds that the words pain her no longer.

Eventually the door opens, and there he is in the flesh. She looks up from the page, imagines how she must look in this moment, his young, wild-haired wife with her legs crossed beneath her, not unlike the women he no doubt met in the Indies.

She smiles a little at the thought.

He is careful, methodical as ever with the candles, and when he begins to undress and she averts her gaze, she closes the book and lays it once more in its place.

He goes to the fire then, once his nightshirt has been donned and there is now nearly nothing to keep him from her.  After he has finished with the flames, he stands, looking about him as though there must be something he has forgotten.

She stretches out her hand.

“Come to bed.”, she implores him, lonely and with cold feet.

 _Come to bed, husband who loves her.  Husband whom she is now determined to learn to love back.  Whether with any ferocity of passion, she cannot know, but she_ will _love him as a wife loves her husband. Because he loves her so, and he deserves no less._

He looks at her, and yes, she knows that things are out of place.  He should be the one beckoning her to bed, if they were to go by tradition.  And likewise, she would not be reaching out for him, awaiting his palm against her own.

But she has spent the last hour pouring over the sonnet, storing up her courage for this moment, and she does not care for tradition just now.

He walks ‘round to his side of the bed, but before he can snuff the last candle she catches hold of his hand.

_A kiss, pressed to his palm._

He will be wondering where she has gotten her bravery from.

He will wonder yet harder after she finishes, as she is reaching up to his face, touching the lines there for the first time. Using a small hand at his jaw to draw him down to her, kissing him yet again, this time with her lips on his.

It is not so lovely as the night before, for it is only her third kiss ever, and she has no real idea of how to go about it.  But it is real and true, and when they part she nearly laughs with triumph, or would, if the moment was not quite so delicate—she has made him quite breathless.

She tucks a stray curl behind her ear but does not move the hand that cups his jaw.  Forces every ounce of her boldness to the very forefront of her, looks him in the startled eyes, and says softly, “Thank you.”

And sees that he cannot fathom the woman who has replaced his terse, fitful wife in their bed.

Takes care to smile gently at him in hopes that it will ease him 

_Feels lighter than she has in what seems like years, because how was she to know that the key to feeling bright and easy again was simply to act like it?_

“For what?”, he asks her, quite puzzled, and she must take a moment to think before she answers.

Swallows, because there is only one thing she can say.

“For coming after me in the rain.”

The expression that falls over him is a stunned one, not unlike the one that greeted her after the first thank you she paid him.

_Oh, Marianne, be brave for just a moment longer._

Her insides are starting to tremble, and she knows that a large portion of her courage will have faded by morning.

 _But she is determined to try_.

She should tell him that on that long walk as he carried her safely back to Cleveland, he not only saved her from the cold, but rescued her from herself.

She _should_ tell him. 

But she does not. 

This is all so new, all so tender and easily disturbed, and she wants nothing more right now than to sleep with her head tucked into her husband’s shoulder.

Which, after a soft kiss laid to her brow, is just what she does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys!
> 
> Sorry about the long wait...I wrote probably 3/4 of this, ran into writer's block, deleted the whole thing and wrote it again, so I REALLY hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Don't forget to comment and share your thoughts, and without further ado, enjoy.
> 
> Roe

Things change with a subtlety she can only appreciate because she herself has been the catalyst of each tiny transformation. 

They wake curled around one another, as they have every morning she can remember, only instead of blushes and quick extrications, there is now a moment of peace as the morning sunlight begins to shine in through the window.  Her hand rests over his on her belly, and while she once would have snatched it away, unnerved by the touch, now she lets it remain.  Closes her eyes and breathes in the smell of him around her, feeling warm light on her face and his nose in her hair, the rise and fall of his chest behind her, and she attempts to lose herself in the in-between moments that cross the bridge between sleep and waking.

For a moment, she allows herself to know only _him,_ and it is peaceful.

When they rise, something seems to have eased a bit between them, making breaths come more naturally and steps lighter as first he, then later she descends the steps to seek out food.

Then he retires to his papers and she to whatever it is she will occupy herself with for the day.

She has grown quite tired of reading book after book on her own, so her visits to Elinor increase in frequency, most especially now that the weather is slowly warming, the snow becoming a melting mess of puddles, seemingly compensating for its fantastic fury early in the season. Occasionally she walks half the morning away and finds herself strolling up the path to Barton Cottage, Margaret whooping in delight at the sight of her.

She supposes her youngest sister must be bored too.

Mama attempts to scold her sternly, yet cannot quite manage it when a small smile persists on her face, that it is not seemly for Colonel Brandon’s wife to be traipsing all across the country without even a bonnet on her head, but Marianne only smiles. 

Incredibly, it is wonderful to visit home.

She thinks she would not find such comfort, were she to visit Norland now.

She ventures inside the tiny cottage that is, at best, the size of the bedchamber she now shares with her husband, and the first thing that arrests her gaze is the pianoforte.

She sits and plays immediately, some part of her finally feeling the urge to play it not because it is pretty or because Colonel Brandon will expect her to, but because it was a kind and thoughtful gift from a man who, regardless of if he will ever hear its sound or not, finds delight at the thought of her using it.

Her chest swells up at the thought, and though she longs to voice it aloud, she does not.

Mama, she is certain, would not understand.

*** 

 _As the Dashwoods slowly settle into their new Devonshire home, Colonel Brandon becomes their first true friend, aside from Sir John and Mrs. Jennings, of course._

_Marianne never remembers much of him from that time, never remembers much beyond introductions and the infuriation of constantly being matched with him by Mrs. Jennings._

_But there are things that, had she simply stopped for a breath, she would have found most memorable indeed._

_Margaret is immediately enraptured by the Colonel, who fills a sort of Edward-shaped hole in the little girl’s heart.  She pesters him constantly for stories, and he obliges cheerfully enough, giving her tales of far-off lands and adventures without ever disillusioning her of the cruelties of war._

_Margaret, it seems to Mrs. Dashwood, is falling rapidly in love._

_Elinor though, is another matter entirely.  Her eldest daughter is quiet, single-minded in her devotion to the safety of the little cottage’s finances, and refuses steadfastly to make mention of the man she left behind in Sussex._

_Her mother cannot draw her heart out of the deep place she has buried it._

_But Colonel Brandon, he is a good and true friend to her._

_They are kindred spirits, her mother thinks, watching them speak during boisterous gatherings, taking refuge from the gaiety in a corner no one bothers with but themselves._

_The dear man seems a comfort to Elinor, if not the delight of her heart, as Edward had been._

_But Marianne—_

_Marianne notices none of this._

_Before Willoughby ever happens upon her in the rain, she is still stubbornly blind to what everyone seems to thinks is obvious and glaring in the sun._

_She cannot see him properly; does not until she is cold and shivering in the rain, clinging to him for warmth as the steady lilt of his stride nearly lulls her into a frozen grave._

_But he is there, nevertheless, and while she cannot see him, he can see nothing but her._

_There is a day that seems to sag at its very edges with heavy heat and moisture, and of course, it is this day of all days that they must venture out of doors and snap rough, stubborn reeds with fingers ill-suited to the task, Margaret beside herself with delight, but Marianne wondering if she will ever be able to make music with her fingers again as yet another blister forms, the palms of her hands red and scratched._

_And yet, despite all her efforts, the reed she grasps simply will not be broken._

_She does not hear him coming until the reeds that are close enough to touch her rustle with his presence._

_Colonel Brandon, close by her side._

_And a knife, offered silently, but with the smallest of smiles.  Colonel Brandon, who has endeared himself to her family so._

_Margaret’s delight._

_Elinor’s comfort._

_Marianne’s…_

_She reaches out, grasps the smooth, cool handle of the knife in her hand.  He rises and leaves her before she can think of anything to say._

_She presses the blade to the reed, feels the smallness of the knife, the perfect size of it for her small hand, and almost jumps in surprise at how easily the stalk gives way to it._

_The blade has been freshly sharpened._

_***_

Marianne plays the little pianoforte at Barton Cottage for almost an hour, and when she finishes, goes to sit with Mama and sip a cup of tea with her.

This place, this cottage where they found refuge after the death of her dear father, it seems so strangely foreign now, though still retains the comfort of home.  She wonders if Elinor visits often, and what she feels when she does. Wonders, if she climbed the stairs this moment and found herself in the room she once shared with her sister, would it seem familiar, or would she feel only the absence of her husband, his bookshelves, and candles, and the smell of him, some mixture of the freshness of the outdoors and something hazy and woody, that permeates the sheets at Delaford?

So preoccupied is she with her musings and whatever her mother is speaking to her of, that she passes most of the afternoon away there, only leaving when she realizes that if she starts now, the sky will be well on its way to darkening by the time she reaches Delaford.

So she sets off, bids her mother and sister farewell, promising them she will return soon, and makes her way along the road with great, long steps that relish the stroll.

She has walked half of the way home when it begins to rain.

*** 

_Willoughby does not propose._

_Instead, he leaves her all alone._

_She wears her finest dress, is pink in the cheeks with excitement that burns hotly in her belly.  She wonders if he will whisper a sonnet to her, or perhaps sing a song like he is wont to do._

_What she knows for certain, is that when he professes his love and desire for her, the great passion for him that has too long been trapped inside of her will boil over and spill out, and she will be unable to contain herself at all._

_But he is not passionate with lovemaking when he arrives; he is instead cold, unfeeling almost, and she can recognize nothing of her love in the man who stands before her and informs her of his impending departure for London._

_And she is, just as she knew she would be, uncontainable._

Nothing,  _she thinks, will ever be able to contain her despair._

***

It is nearly dark when Marianne finally reaches Delaford, soaked through and shivering.

She takes care not to knock, not to alert the servants, because she knows there will be scandalized talk if she does.  Her fingers, clumsy with cold, open the door and she closes it as softly as she is able behind her.

Rests against it for a moment once she is out of the downpour that the first gentle rain has turned into.  She has quite tired herself out in her haste to walk the remainder of the way home.

Another shiver runs through her.  She needs to go upstairs, needs to get out of this dress. Perhaps a warm bath—

She jumps at the sound of a floorboard creaking to her left.  She knows without looking who she will find, and _oh,_ she had wanted so badly to warm and dry herself without him seeing her, without him knowing, but he has no doubt been wondering what has kept her so long, and she should have known better than to think she could keep it from him.

She turns to look at him, sees his surprise, the widening of his eyes at the state of her, dripping there on his floor, her hair hanging limply from her head.  She looks down and sees she is creating a puddle, then looks back up and opens her mouth to say something, but cannot because he is coming closer, reaching out a hand, and there is something in his face that has gone not-quite-angry, but very close.

_She is on a hill in the rain, unable to move for a numbing, freezing despair seeping into her skin._

_She is cold—so cold, and she knows beyond any doubt that she will never feel warm again._

She catches her breath, thinks she sees him do the same at the exact same time.

And she knows.  They are both living the same hillside moment, right now at the door of his house, and for a weak, solitary breath, she can hardly bear to look at him.

He looks horrified.

“I—I was caught in the rain.”

She says it in a whisper, though she cannot tell if she is so quiet because the cold has paralyzed her throat, or because his expression has stolen her voice from her.

_She remembers him carrying her home._

He hesitates, seems to weigh his words, and then asks only “Are you hurt?”, in an odd, careful voice, to which she answers that no, she is not.  He looks at her for only a moment longer, seemingly entranced by the sight of her, then closes his fingers around her wrist firmly and begins leading her to the stairs, slowing when she winces a bit.

Her feet have begun to tingle unpleasantly from the cold wetness of her shoes.

That almost-angry, tense thing in his face seems to give way a little when he watches her roll her ankles, attempting to warm her toes.  His eyes soften, though there is still something of a reproach in them.

“Why did you come all this way?’, he asks quietly, almost exasperatedly as they make their way up the stairs.  “You could have stayed at the cottage, or at the parish. Your sister would hardly have turned you away.”

She shakes her head.  “I was already halfway here, and once I saw the parish, I knew I was close. I wanted to be home.”

He makes a noise that contains no words.

They have reached the top of the stairs now, are walking down the hall, into their bedchamber.  The fire is already lit, and the warm glow of it taunts her as he leads her instead to the screen in the opposite corner of the room.  She ducks behind it, and he passes her a clean, linen nightdress, plain, and white, and _dry_.

It feels so soft as she pulls it over her head, sticking to the dampness that still covers her.  She comes out from behind the screen with her hair bunched up in her hands, wringing the nearly-frozen water from it, and he is holding—

Her hideous sweater.  The one she wore when he proposed out in the chilly wind that she knows he wanted more than anything to keep her from.

She had not known it was here, assumed it was left behind at the cottage, along with all her other slightly-threadbare things. 

She certainly did not pack it herself.

He wraps it around her and she says not a word about it. She is grateful for its warmth.

Then he is leading her to the fire, sitting her down before it and fetching a blanket like a nursemaid to a small child, and she is watching him, even as the heat feels almost like an assault on her still-tepid flesh.

When he seats himself beside her, leaning close to her for a moment to drape the woolen blanket over her, she gasps.

Her eyes leap to his as he looks down at her questioningly, and she knows he is wondering if she has found some injury on herself. 

“You are always so _warm.”_ , she sighs instead, caught up in the wonder of it, the heat of him behind her.  She has never been so, her feet always frozen in the night, constantly wrapping herself in blankets.

_Her manners, cold and short._

His mouth opens, though he does not speak.  He finishes settling the blanket over her, then shifts closer, giving her his arms, his heat, and it is _delicious._   She presses herself back against him, his chest as warm against her back as the fire is at her front, and a sigh that sounds unnervingly like a satisfied moan slips from her lips at the utter warmth that she finds herself surrounded by.

She feels his breath catch in his chest, sighs as he drapes himself around her to keep her warm, tucks his chin over her head, and tells her in a tired, weary voice to try and sleep.

She slips under with scarcely a ripple.

***

_Joy surges wildly within her, making her body feel simply too small to contain it as Mrs. Jennings’ carriage bears her closer and closer to London._

_Closer and closer to Willoughby._

_She drives Elinor mad with her longing for him, her need to hear his voice, posting a letter before she has even removed her bonnet once they reach the London home they will be staying in._

_When she hears a knock just outside, she cannot drink her tea._

_Oh God, Willoughby._

_But it is for next door._

_There is another knock only moments later, a knock that is unmistakably for the house they find themselves in, and she cannot breathe._

_“It is Willoughby—indeed, it is!”_

_Hot pleasure courses through her at the thought, sweet, burning anticipation filling her.  She pinches her cheeks to pink them, though surely, they must be rosy with excitement by now._

_She is nothing but passionate joy as she goes to the door, ready to cry out when it opens._

_And reveals Colonel Brandon._

_Disappointment is a cold shock in her stomach, making her feel dizzy and faint._

_Colonel Brandon, and he seems even older and graver than last she saw him._

_She feels hot tears fill her eyes._

_“Oh!  Excuse me, Colonel.”_

_She does not want him here; not when he comes in the place of the man she loves._

_She hears her voice waver on the last word, but slips through the door before either Elinor or the Colonel can say anything about it._

***

She wakes surrounded by him.

The last little bit of daylight that was in the sky when she drifted off has been snuffed out by stars.  The fire has mellowed in its grate, still a heated, golden glow, but softer now, gentle in the night.

And they have moved.

They are no longer on the carpet before the flames, but are tucked into his armchair, her cradled in his lap, his arms around her to keep her secure, the blanket over the pair of them, so that only the very tips of her toes peek out.  Her hair has very nearly dried, the rest of her feeling pleasantly warm, though she can already tell by the ache in her head that she will be sneezing for much of tomorrow.

Her cheek rests against his chest, a wet patch in his shirt now from where the remaining water in her hair slowly seeps from her, and as she nuzzles closer, still lost in sleepiness and seeking more of his warmth, of that comforting scent that tells her she is home.  He hums deep in his chest, startling her a little more clearly awake, telling her that he too, is no longer asleep, or perhaps never has been. 

“Are you well?”, he murmurs into the night, almost into her hair, and she nods against him, knowing he can feel it.

Just as she can feel his swallow, can feel the thickness of it as if it is her own.

“Please,” he whispers with a strange edge to his voice, almost ragged and so quietly above her, she must strain to hear.  “no more walks in the rain.  I cannot bear to see you ill.”

And yes, she hears the tremor in his voice, the memory there.  She wonders, for the first time ever, just what drove him from Cleveland to fetch her mother during her terrible fever.  Wonders if he had seen her in her delirium, hot and sweaty with it.

Wonders what Eliza looked like on her deathbed; if she had glistened with fever too.

_He once held Marianne in his arms just like this, carrying her safely out of the rain._

“I promise.”, she swears to him hoarsely. She wants to tell him that she did not mean to go out in a downpour again.  Wants to tell him that the sky was clear and sunny when she left the cottage, and that she had not been able to bear the thought of stopping at the parsonage when she had known Delaford was only a little way further down the road.

But she does not, because yes, she knows that she has wronged him this evening, however unwittingly.  She had known the moment she had seen his face.

She will never do this to him again.

“I swear it.”, she tells him, promises him further, looking up into his face to be certain he believes her.

They are so very close. 

For a moment, she is certain he means to kiss her. Can feel his breath on her lips and is so certain of the approaching touch, she feels her breath catch in her chest.

_She wants his lips on hers so very badly.  Thinks she must still be asleep, dreaming, because she has never needed such a thing like she does now.  Wonders for a wild moment if she is burning up with fever even now, because she has never before thought to want Colonel Brandon’s affections as though they are the only thing allowing her to go on breathing._

A sneeze catches her by surprise, and he looks hunted by the sound.

She swallows her disappointment, blushing, and he lays his cheek against her brow, no doubt seeing the pink blooming in her cheeks and making certain it is not from fever.

She murmurs that she is not ill, but his cheek stays there anyway, and she does not protest, because only a breath ago she had wanted his lips of hers like she wants her next gulp of air, and in their absence, she will take his touch instead. 

She tucks her toes into the space between his thigh and the chair, warming them further, and he asks her if she is cold.

She shakes her head.  Tells him once more that he is always so very, very warm.  That she is jealous of his heat, has never had any of her own.

His arms pull her closer, and she sleeps.

*** 

_Marianne has not a care in the world for balls.  She never has, despising the crude form of courtship that is dancing and pretending intimacy with one partner, only to do it all over again in the next set with a new stranger._

_But at this one, she has been promised, she will see Willoughby once more, and she has never loved the prospect of a ball more._

_When Mrs. Jennings coos at Elinor, simpers to Fanny of the ‘Famous Mr. F’, Marianne’s lip curls._

_When Robert Ferrars insults her sister, she hates him for it._

_When Elinor dances with him in spite of it, she hails her sister as a saint._

_When she does not see Willoughby, when he does not catch her about the waist, his hands a welcome and longed-for surprise, she begins to despair._

_When she_ does _see him, bowing to Elinor and so very handsome, she cries out in delight._

 _When he bows stiffly to her and speaks to her as if they are cousins with a poor rapport, she does not understand._

_When she sees him in the corner, so dispassionate, Sophia Grey on his arm, she thinks she will surely die._

_***_

She wakes sneezing, still wrapped in his arms in the chair that cradles them both, and she does not cease her sniffles all the day long 

He stays very near to her all day, reads with her in the library, forsakes his study in favor of working out his numbers by her side near the window of the sitting room.

She knows he is watching her, afraid she will fall ill with a fevered chill.

She knows he must have better, more important things to do; knows that his neck must be sore from tilting it so that he can write on his knee in his chair since he has forgone a desk in order to remain by her side, so she at least attempts to make things pleasant for him in her own way.

She plays music for him on his fine, grand pianoforte. She sorts through the mess of music that is kept hidden away inside the bench, finds one she likes and believes she can manage, and sets her fingers to the task.

It is a struggle, and she plays through it several times before she thinks it sounds close to how it is meant to.

Then she starts on another. 

Hours go by with her paging through music, eyes fixed on the notes and keys, until finally she is tired, looks up, and sees that he is no longer working, but listening to her with his eyes closed, looking restful.

_She suspects he stayed up with her nearly all night long._

But he is not asleep; opens his eyes when she stops playing, and tells her it was beautiful.

Her lips part.

“Play something for me.”, she whispers, her voice gone hoarse from last night. 

His brow furrows, and she thinks he must have been closer to sleep than she first thought when she stopped playing, because he seems to require a moment before he understands, then another moment before he replies he can hardly play now, after she has done so as beautifully as ever.

He smiles a little as he speaks the words, and she thinks he looks tired. 

 _The poor Colonel, she_ knows _he stayed up all night with her, devoting himself to her warmth and comfort._

She leaves the bench, walks the few steps to his chair, and kneels at his feet.  She is reminded vividly of blood, a wound on his leg, a very close thing, and she feels something inside herself tender strangely.  She remembers the look on his face last night, how very upset he was to see her soaked through and cold.

Remembers how he held her before the fire, giving her every last bit of warmth he had.  He does the same every night when he drapes himself around her in bed, his arm over her waist.

 _He gave her his warmth in the rain, when she was nothing but frozen despair._

She has no warmth to give him in return, has always been cold, all her life long.

But she wants so desperately to give him _something._   Wants to take the tiredness from his face, because she knows _she_ has put it there, after he has spent so long coaxing her out of her strange grief, her stiffness.  She still feels bruised, a little battered, but something in her knows that she would be shattered into a million pieces yet if it were not for him—with his infuriating patience.

_She wants more than anything for him to be happy after she has caused him so much grief._

She props her chin on his knee, knowing she would be blushing if her nose was not all swollen and her eyes a little watery from her venture in the rain, and asks him again.  Says please. 

Tells him she played the pianoforte at the cottage; that it sounded beautiful.  She does not say that the music kept her so occupied, she lost track of the time and was caught up in the rain.

He need never know that.

She takes his hand in hers and kisses the backs of his knuckles, feeling so endeared to these fingers that wrapped around her wrist and led her up the stairs to warmth and sleep last night.  These fingers that have somehow smuggled her horrible, woolen sweater out of Barton Cottage and into Delaford, despite Mama’s best attempts to burn the thing, just to provide her with yet another comfort.

She kisses them again when she hears him inhale sharply at the first; she is sorry that even small affections from her must still be savored for their rarity, reflecting on the fact that, though she herself has always been the romantic one, Elinor has always been the warmly affectionate one, always ready to give a comforting touch.

She, it seems, has always been cold right down to her very bones.

She has heard these fingers play for her beautifully, and she wants to hear it again.

He gives in, rises once she has gotten herself out of his way, and makes his way over to the bench, rifling through it for some piece she has not yet played.  She follows him, wanting to see what he intends for her, but sees that he has chosen something so old and worn that she cannot make out title or composer.

And then he plays.

Oh, it is just as beautiful as the last time, only now she can see it, is behind him, and so can watch his fingers as they make music for her, and she is fascinated by them, by their length and elegance; gracefulness. 

Their steadiness.

 _His hands are beautiful, and she will kiss them again when he has finished, not because she feels she should because of the look in his eyes or the tenderness he has given her, but because the sight of him, drowsy from an unpleasant night, but making music for her with his fine fingers nevertheless, makes her throat swell up with the tenderness she has aspired to ever since the goodnight kisses he has laid to her lips, and she to his.  Only this time, such a feeling need not be consciously felt, but is effortless._

When he does finish, she takes a seat beside him on the bit of bench he has not occupied, and she kisses his knuckles again, just as she swore to.

Does not replace his hand to the keys, but holds it between her own in her lap, studying their lines and wrinkles.

Tells him thank you very quietly, not wanting to break the imaginary echo of his song.

Gasps when she dares to look up at him, because he really is going to kiss her now, she is just as certain of it as she was last night in his chair before she sneezed; more so.  He is going to kiss her in his sitting room in broad daylight, and she is going to hold his hand between hers while he does it.

When his lips touch hers, it is like an ache that she has not noticed until just now is relieved.  _This_ is what she had longed for so last night—this safety that his kisses bring her; this surety that this kiss will not be the last he gives her.  The way he kisses her, with their fingers together in her lap and his other hand on her cheek, urgent in a way that is new since she came home shivering and dripping wet, it makes her feel like she is sitting before the fire in their bedchamber even now, a gentle, lovely warmth covering her head to toe, and she thinks that no one, in all her life, has ever been so tender with her as the dear Colonel, and yet, in all her life she has never been crueler to anyone.

And…yes— _there._  She has landed upon it quite by accident, the thing about his kisses that takes her breath away and makes her long for another and then another.

His kisses are holy things, pure, and perfect, and full of too much love for her to bear, but they make her feel _forgiven,_ just for the moment his lips press into hers intently, seeking her out for something she does not know how to give, and she chases that forgiveness with everything she has, in the hope that someday she will be able to call it her own.

When he parts from her, draws back with one last stroke of his thumb to her cheek, she must catch herself from leaning after him, unready to give up the sweetness he has given her. 

_It is a circle she cannot break.  He kisses her, and she wants another, and he kisses her, and she wants still another.  How strange, she had not known kisses would feel this way, would warm her like good wine, the most soothing comfort she has ever felt._

They look one another in the eyes for a long moment, and when she can finally force her throat into action, she rasps once more that she is sorry; that she never meant to go out in the rain.

He nods, swallows thickly and looks for a moment as though he is pained.

His palms frame her face.

“Do not do it again, Marianne.  _Please,_ do not do it again.”, he begs fervently as he tucks his chin over the crown of her head once more, his hands reaching around her to rest on her back. He rocks her to a fro, and he murmurs to her all the while that she is far too precious, far too cared for to be lost in the cold.

And she knows what he truly means.

_He will always come for her, always rescue her and keep her warm, because he loves her too much to lose her to the rain._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay guys,
> 
> I know it's been a long time, but stuff's been happening, and I've been really struggling with this chapter for weeks. Anyway, I know it's long and kind of quiet, but please take my word for it, stuff's going to start happening here soon. I promise.
> 
> Enjoy, and I hope you'll let me know what you think,
> 
> Roe

After the rain, Marianne finds herself to be only tired.

_Catch._

_Ache._

_Ease._

Her heart knows the pattern all too well by now, the pain of scars she does not even know she possesses, being painstakingly reopened, bled, and then so slowly, resealed, but without the previous ache.

 _And she is so tired of all of it; all of the hurt and confusion she has brought between them._

From the very first day.

So, she seeks to make amends.

She learns a duet, and they play it.  He looks at her strangely when she brings it to him, raises a brow at her as though he has never seen her before for just a moment, but then joins her on the bench readily enough and lends his fingers to her wishes. 

She is grateful to him.  Her heart is grateful that he has not insisted she explain herself, because she does not believe she possesses either the self-knowledge nor the fortitude to do so. 

_The song sounds so very well though, a surprise to them both, though she knows not why it should be.  It seems they have taken to one another’s keys without a moment’s pause._

She is warring within herself.

She wants it—oh, she wants it _so badly._   Wants the clear sky above her and the smell of grass and sea in her lungs.  Wants the burn of exertion in her legs and her heart pounding with it against her chest.

She wants to venture out of doors once more, as she has refrained from doing since her episode in the rain.

_She has frightened him terribly, she knows._

And she has no wish to do it again.

She stares at her fingers for a long, hard moment after their song finishes; they are both silent with it, perhaps a little breathless from the surprise of the sweetness of the sound.

He is looking at her.  _Gazing._

 _She does not know how to look back without showing him all that she wishes for inside._

So she studies her fingers, the keys, and she smiles a little at his beside her own, because they are so very, very different.

_Yet his, rough, tanned, large, beside her small and pale, have always been the softer, warmer of the two._

She imagines they are warm, even now. Imagines them always to be, because she does not think she has ever seen him so much as approach anger in the long months she has known him, though he has had provocation in abundance.

_Not the least of which from her._

He breaks the silence first.  Tells her in no more than a murmur that she has been restless of late.

_Yes, restless is the word.  Quite unable to rest with any peace._

A thunderstorm still caught inside of her. 

And she…must search far and wide for her words; for the words she would speak to him now, here, as their notes still echo against the walls.

Never truly finds them. 

And the ones she does find—they do their duty poorly.

“I—I only—”

_She only needs the burn of fresh air in her lungs this instant, or she will surely die._

_She longs for it, as she has scarcely longed for anything else in her short, fire-burnt life._

She does not want to ask him, because she is ashamed, and loathe to admit to it.  Unwilling to tell him that yes, she knows she frightened him, but that unbeknownst to him, she managed to frighten even herself with that wayward venture into the rain.

_A cold sort of lostness with no Colonel there to fetch her home._

But he knows.  Somehow, he always knows. 

 _A finger at her temple, so light, she might have imagined it._

_A murmur, just upwards of her ear._

“It is not my purpose to lock you away like a bird caged to sing.” 

Her lips open on a gasp.

_How does he always know?_

“I did not—”

But she needn’t even try.

_Colonel Brandon always knows._

And…is he not correct?  She _has_ kept herself far from the out of doors to soothe the stark alarm she witnessed on his face at the sight of her wet through and cold.

 _And to soothe her own fear as she struggled home in the rain without his arms to warm her._

_But he does not mean to lock her up as a caged bird._

“I want to go for a walk.”, she tells him quietly. Unforcefully. 

And she watches him.  Watches him stop, watches him rise slowly and make his way to the large window.  Watches him look out of it, his eyes cast upward, seeing the fat clouds and wondering how soon the rain in their bellies will fall.

She can see plainly enough that she has troubled him. He does not mean to lock her up as a caged bird, but…perhaps he will, regardless?  _Better than allowing her out on hills that could beat and bruise her lungs bloody and weak._

She waits for it.

But it never comes.

He turns, looks strangely at her again, eyebrow raised, as though to ask her why she is still where she is, on the piano bench. 

“A…a walk?”, she asks, puzzled by him.

_Where is his refusal?  He has already drawn a vow from her to never, ever do what she did again.  He has every right to tell her never to walk those hills again either._

Except…he does not.

“You have a fine day for it.”

And she can only look up at him.

It…comes pouring over her like a torrent of freezing rain.  She has _not_ remained within Delaford’s walls for her husband—for the Colonel.  

_She has remained hidden behind his plea for her not to place herself in harm’s way, for herself.  For her own fear.  She wonders now, will she always be afraid of the rain?_

Even as she longs for it with her every breath.

She…she only realizes it now, after she has her answer from him.  She did not ask him, she now knows, in true hope of permission, or whatever foolishness she had convinced herself she sought.

 _She asked him to hear him tell her no.  She asked him so she would have an excuse not to go._  

There is shame, but not of the variety that has kept her quiet and reserved in his company for the duration of their marriage. This shame is new, and it stems from her own cowardice, and her inability to own it, or even to see it in herself. 

_He sees it.  He always knows._

“I—”

She wishes, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, for her old self—the one who could summon a witty remark with narry a thought in her head—because she finds herself quite at a loss for any suitable words at all at the moment.

 _He is looking at her, and once again, she is given the eerie impression that he can somehow read her thoughts as clearly as one reads words on a page._

“Perhaps tomorrow?”, she asks, as though he has implored her to take a turn with _him_ instead of given her unneeded leave to venture from his own property.

He nods, not a word said.  _He is always so easy, so quiet, perhaps a little too quiet to be considered truly agreeable.  She, at least, has found him, to her great astonishment, to be most excellent company in the months since she has become his wife. And quite suddenly, she wonders if he has found her to be the same._

Likely not, as she currently sits with her mouth hanging a little open like a fish thrown unexpectedly out of water.

So she does the only thing left to her, and she retreats; back to her book, to her quiet.  Leaves him to his own, to whatever it is he does when his eyes are not on her.

They sleep that night, and his arm settles warmly about her, just over the top of her belly, and it feels like a fire on her skin, though they are separated by the linen they both wear.

_She can feel his breaths on her hair._

The very last thing she remembers is struggling against sleep, knowing that when she wakes, it will be tomorrow, and she will have to once more face the prospect of the rain.

~ 

_And suddenly, inexplicably, all the world has turned irrevocably grey._

_Willoughby._

_A long-treasured lock of hair in her hands, wrapping itself about her trembling fingers._

_No._

_The ache is…impossible.  Crushing.  Like holding up the sky.  The sobs shake her and send her doubling over in heaves until she cannot breathe.  She is made as dry and as brittle as the curl she holds by ink scrawled elegantly across a pale page._

_‘My Dear Madam…’_

_Willoughby._

_Elinor cannot comfort her._

_Mrs. Jennings has not even a hope._

_There is…no solace for her now._

_Every day implied, but never declared._

_Her heart—it will never love again._

_~_

She does not walk the next day, or the next.

He does not bid her to, or make comment of the exceptionally fine weather they are graced with.

 _She wastes the sunshine for fear of the rain._

She stands guard at the window and stares out of it, looking every bit the princess locked up in her tower, she knows.  Elinor would never believe it of her, this fear that has suddenly taken a ruthless hold of her, keeping her locked away like the caged bird the Colonel insists she is not.

_Elinor’s baby.  She should go see her sister, the growing swell of her belly.  It would be good of her, and do her good in return.  But the walk seems so very far…If the clouds were to grow heavy…_

She does not. 

One day, he passes an hour at the window with her, peering out of it as though fixating on whatever it is he assumes her to be staring at.

_She hardly sees the rolling grass before her.  Wonders what it is he thinks she spies._

And when they have passed a week like that, her in various attitudes at the window, sometimes curled in a chair with a book in hand, other times staring forlornly through the glass, there comes a day when she not only feels him behind her but feels also his warm hand, unthreatening, but steady at her elbow.

 _“Come.”_

She follows.  Knows very well she has nothing to fear from him.  Perhaps he has found new music to show her, or has had a letter he wishes her to read. 

But no.  She only draws away from him when he leads her to the great door and makes to drape her cloak about her shoulders.

“But—”

 _She does not want to go.  Foolishness. Utter folly.  She feels slow, deaf, numb.  Wretched._

Prideful.  She can see now, how prideful her walks always were, as though God and nature would make exception for her among thunderclouds and lightning.

But her husband beckons.

And she follows.

The first ray of sunshine on her face is… _exquisite._   Oh, how she has missed the sun!

They climb exactly one hill that day, and it is not unlike the walks they used to take before they were even engaged.  The walks they used to take to chaperone Elinor with her beloved.  Marianne had known even then, though perhaps she had sought to deny it, that she would one day wear the Colonel’s ring and take his name for her own.  It had seemed the natural order of things, so much so that when the proposal finally came, it seemed only the next step in a sequence she had been following for ever such a long time.

Now they walk without any others to accompany them, and the day is fine a filled with sunshine, and he tells her of a boy who learned to ride his first pony on this very hill.  A _Christopher_ who loved the sun on his face and the wind in his hair every bit as fiercely as she.  A boy who never paid heed to the rain, and often found himself wet-through to his mother’s discontent.

His lips, they do not _smile_ as he tells her, but they curve upward just a fraction at the ends, and _she_ smiles in his stead, because the thought of her husband as a young boy romping over rolling hills is such a charming one, and he is making her forget the rain by giving her hours on end of sun.

She tells him of Sussex, of her own childhood hills and romps, and they laugh together at the memories shared between them, and she wonders at the easing of her chest, the slow release of fear, such strangeness finally leaving her is such sweet relief.

Finally, when morning has turned to afternoon and her cheeks feel pink with the pleasure of the day, they return to the house and settle in to wait for evening. 

Not so much as an hour after they are back indoors, the clouds burst open and it begins to rain.

~

_“Dearest, was I right to tell you?”_

_Elinor, and her every word sucks the breath from Marianne’s lungs until she feels as though she has shriveled, blood pouring out of a gaping wound._

_“Of course.”_

_She…oh.  Willoughby, and another young girl.  A child. A baby._

_The pain is…a flash of brilliant white in the candle-broken darkness, and it hurts her eyes, keeping her thoughts from the Colonel and his ward, too preoccupied with her own injury.  Her own dying heart._

_“Whatever his past actions, whatever his present course, at least you may be certain he loved you.”_

_Love.  Every day implied, but never declared._

_“But not enough.”_

_Love is madness, passion that dies and is reborn._

_Not enough._

_~_

She brushes her hair by the window that night, looking out at the pouring rain.

 _Such a storm._

And how did he know?  She not foolish enough to think that he did not plan things just so; to assume his timing in their outing and their subsequent return to the house was good fortune and nothing more.  He is a soldier, he must have sensed rain in the air, even when she could not.

He is already seated on his side of the bed, pillows propped behind him, a book in hand.

“How fortunate, that we were not caught in the shower.”, she tells him softly in the near-dark, though she knows very well it was not fortune at all, and the forcefulness of the rain can hardly be called a shower. 

He looks to her and hums agreement, and something deep inside of her seems to hum back, though she makes not a sound.

Eventually, there are no more tangles left to tame, and she leaves her perch by the window in favor of the warmth of their bed. Lifts the heavy blanket and slides beneath, feeling how his body has warmed the sheets for her. 

Reaches over as he turns the page of his book, stopping his hand with her own and taking it from him to see what he reads.

 _Poetry.  Of course._

“It was a very fine morning for walking.”, she says as she turns idly through the pages, saving with her index finger the place where he left off.

“And yet now you shiver.”, he murmurs, catching her at it though she has hidden it successfully till now.

She only tells him that the cold is in the damp.

He nods, but pulls her close all the same, his arms reaching about her until she is pressed to his side and feeling as though she lies abed with the hearthfire.

She finishes with the book.  Tries to hand it back to him, though he only smiles a very soft, very small smile and shakes his head.

“Read something.”

She blinks.

“You have the voice for reading, not me.”, she tells him, thinking of all the deep tones he can strike and the feeling he always laces the words with until they sound like a lovelorn melody.

“Yours will do just as well, tonight if it is half so lovely as it is when you sing.”  And she can feel herself flushing as she struggles to puzzle him out.

He _…_ is not usually so free with his praises, though she sees them in his eyes when he does not turn them into words for her.  But there is a tenderness about him now, something soft and longing that beckons to her, and he _wants_ this, she realizes with a start.  So seldomly begs _anything_ of her that she suddenly feel it will be unreasonable to tell him no.

Swallows, turns to the page where he left off.

_A love poem, beautiful, and lyrical, and just the sort of thing she feels will be impossible for her to give life to after everything._

But she tries.  Wets her lips and then opens them around the first syllable.  Feels his fingers stroke her hair very gently, as he sometimes does when he kisses her goodnight. 

She thinks of those kisses as she reads the words; tries to borrow some sweetness from them, some feeling so that she will get the tone right for the poem.

By the time she reaches the end, for it is a very long work, she is a little lost in the memories, his fingers at her jaw, his lips on her brow first, then on her own.  She feels warm, drowsy.  Knows that if she but closes her eyes she will instantly sleep. 

His fingers are still at her curls, and all together, the candlelight, and the poem, and her husband, they are making her feel as though she is floating, weightless in the warmth of the sun.

_Beautiful._

Uses sleep-clumsy fingers to close the book, but sees first that there is an inscription, and reads it.

_Christopher and Eliza._

She swallows.

She knows very well it is not meant as an insult. Perhaps could even be taken for the highest praise.

Runs her fingers over the words and can _feel_ his gaze upon her.  She is suddenly nearer to awake than she was before.

“Will you tell me about her?”, she hears herself ask very quietly.  “Will you tell me about Eliza?”

About the woman he loved and lost, the one he is so reminded of when he looks at her.

He stops, his fingers leaving her hair, a deep breath entering, then leaving his lungs.

And he tells her.

Tells her of a young boy, and an even younger girl.

Tells her of a cruel father, and an older brother who proved even worse.

Tells her of moonlit-madness and kisses, music with hearts caught up in it, poems, locks of hair.

_Tells her of the sort of love she once thought she knew, only this time she knows that it was true._

He tells her of other, smaller things too; things like smiles and a sweet voice.  Small, fragile hands. 

Promises meant to be kept.

Promises that were broken by those who had not made them.

He tells her of a poorhouse and consumption, and a little baby girl he vowed to love as his own.

And she thinks of her own love, though now she knows it was not love at all, and thinks of a little baby out in the world with eyes like John Willoughby’s.

Her heart aches for him, for the Colonel and his Eliza. Aches like it used to ache for herself.

He is holding her very close by the end of his tale. They have lied down, and his arms cradle her against his chest, his hands in her hair once more, and quite suddenly she wonders just how closely she resembles his precious Eliza.

Asks him, and thinks she would not be half so brave if she were fully awake and not far too drunk of sleep and warmth.

He seems to pull out of himself then, to look on her anew, without ghosts in her eyes, and she watches him smile at her ruefully.

Hears him as he tells her that he has never known two people to be more alike, and yet they are so impossibly different, sometimes it quite astounds him. 

But she hears the words for what they are. 

_A promise._

He promises her that yes, everything she has ever heard people say about the likeness is true beyond dispute.

But when _he_ looks at her, when Colonel Brandon looks at her, she is only Marianne.

He has not married a ghost.

And it is enough.

Now she knows.

He kisses her.

And they sleep.

_~_

_The final days before Marianne’s wedding seem to fly by in such a hurry, she hardly knows they have arrived before they are quite gone, never to return._

_She visits her sister often, having resigned herself to encountering the Colonel along the road.  She is to wed him in a week’s time, she supposes, so she had best learn not to flinch at his approach._

_The Colonel, for his part, visits Barton Cottage often, but instead of a book, of late he has focused his attentions on Margaret, entertaining her with endless stories and sharing exotic maps from the vast library at Delaford._

_Marianne watches their smiles, and her throat grows thick, making it impossible for her to swallow._

_Will he smile like that after they are wed?  Will he desire children like Margaret to laugh and play with?_

_She does not know what she will do if he does.  Presumably, her duty, but she cannot force herself to fathom it._

_The thought of any detail to do with the wedding—the dress, the breakfast, gathering her every earthly possession to move with her to her husband’s home, to Delaford—has the power to make her unaccountably ill will nerves._

_She is a wretched creature when all the world expects to bloom like a rose, so happy._

_Two nights before the wedding they all dine at Barton Park, and she tries very hard not to meet the Colonel’s gaze, though he occupies the seat opposite hers at the long table._

_She…does not fear him.  Nor does she hate him._

_She fears herself.  Fears his war stories, the hallowed respect everyone who knows of him speaks his name with._

_She fears what it will be to be the wife of a man everyone loves like a hero._

_She fears the unending penance she sees before her.  So many sins to atone for; there will scarcely be enough days in her life to right them all._

_The night before the wedding, and she cannot sleep for even a moment.  Is too busy remembering his farewell to her the night before.  His kiss to her fingers, soft and brief in farewell, but a gesture not afforded to any other lady of the party._

_Now it is past midnight, she knows it must be, and this very day, in only a very few short hours, Colonel Brandon will be her husband, vowed and unbreakable by the holy church._

_She cannot breathe._

_~_

The next morning is a quiet one, and for once, when she wakes, the Colonel has not already left her.

No, he sleeps deeply beside her, his breaths slow against her cheek, and she wonders at him, at the warmth and softness of his sleeping form.

 _He must be very tired, and she thinks of her questions from the night before; of his story._  

Rolls to a more comfortable position and tries to lie back quietly; tries not to wake him.  But he only sleeps a few minutes longer, regardless, as though he can sense she is awake.

_“Good morning.”_

She whispers it quietly, like she used to whisper it to Elinor on very cold, very early mornings, and he blinks at her, drowsy and confused.  She smiles very quickly at him then, does not want him to think she is cross with him for something he said in the night before they slept, and almost before she can think of doing, most definitely before she can think of caution and decide against it, she leans down and presses her lips to his brow, just as he has pressed his to hers each night since they were wed.

Tells him good morning once again.

Then rises, and leaves him to ready for his day. 

The rest of the day is just as quiet, and she leaves him to himself, thinking of how he did much the same during her first weeks at Delaford as his wife.

_Thinks of the poem, of Eliza, of the way he looks at her sometimes, knowing that since the day of their wedding, he has never hidden his love from her, has shown it to her constantly in his own, quiet way, with no hope of ever receiving the same from her._

Thinks that he showed it to her long before then, and that he was only too quiet, and she too blind to see it. 

And something inside of her is made quite sad by the thought.

That night she is very tired, and she goes to bed so early, that it is she who awaits him beneath their covers, instead of the other way around.

Leans close when he presses his lips to her brow.

And sleeps with her head cradled in the hollow of his shoulder, warm and content.

~

_There are some things, Marianne knows even so deep into grief, she thinks she may never surface again, that not even love can overcome._

_This—this betrayal, this heartbreak, may be one of them._

_~_

That night, she dreams.

Dreams of a garden, the Delaford roses thick in it, the air heavy with their scent.  Her hair is down, about her shoulders, and she can feel it tickling at her neck, the breeze carrying it to and fro, free in the brilliant sunlight.

And there is laughter.  Bright, easy laughter, and for a moment, she thinks it is her own.

Before she sees the child.

_Young, and light, and fair, she runs freely through the roses, and her cheeks are pink with laughter, and Marianne wants to weep at the sight of her, she is so beautiful._

Strange, there is someone with her, someone just behind her, out of sight.

She wakes before she can turn to see his face.

And when her husband asks her, come morning, what it was in her dreams that made her so restless in the night, she feels out of sorts and tells him only that she dreamt of his roses, and how they smell so sweet in the spring.

 _~_  

_The carriage ride from London to Cleveland is a long, miserable affair, and Marianne wishes herself either dead or near to it as they proceed down the uneven road._

_She closes her eyes against Mrs. Palmer’s prattling, tries to hear nothing but the trees, the birds, the hooves of the horses as they trot them home._

_She hears Willoughby._

_Willoughby._

_Willoughby._

_And finally, they are released._

_A hand helps her from the carriage, then leaves her for some other charge instead. She looks to the sky, and it is ripe and swollen with purple clouds._

_She just wants a stroll.  A distraction to cool the ache of her head._  

_“I think it is going to rain.”, Elinor calls after her, worry lacing every word, but Marianne hardly hears her._

_It will not rain, but she will say a prayer of thanksgiving if it should._

_~_

_He kisses her; her brow, her lips._

_A kiss so light, it might only be a breath, laid sweetly to her pulse point._

_The very tip of her collarbone, left bare just at the edge of her nightdress._

She knows, even as she gasps herself awake, that the Colonel has woken with her.

Knows beyond the smallest doubt that it must have been a dream, because he kisses were laid to her before the fire, his arms around her as they were the night she came home shivering with the rain, and now they are abed and the night is dark and deep.

_Oh. So very, very strange._

And she cannot catch her breath.

She slides out from beneath the warmth of the blankets, whispers half-breathlessly that she only needs a drink of water, and staggers to her feet so that they may carry her across the room to the pitcher that holds the coolness she so desires more than anything in that moment. 

_And hears him follow her._

“Are you well?”

But she does not answer; not until she has blessed water at her lips, cooling her throat.

“It was only a dream.”, she tells him, but even to her own ears, her voice sound a bit ragged, far too flustered.

_She wishes he would not stand so close, but knows instantly why when he rests a palm against her brow._

“I am not ill.”, she tells him half-heartedly, wearily, though she knows very well he will never listen. 

Let him feel it for himself—there is no fever to be found in her.

“What is it?”, he asks of her.  “What troubles you?”  And his sleep-whisper is so tender, a plea for her to confide in him, but she does not know _how._  How is she to relate such a dream; one she herself can scarcely understand?

 _She has read more poetry than perhaps any woman living, she knows very well what love is.  But she has never dreamt of it like that before, and never with her husband’s arms around her in their marriage bed._

“Nothing,” she tells him.  “Only, I am restless, and tomorrow I shall be half-asleep all the day.”

So he leads her back to bed, and for a moment it feels unaccountably like their wedding night, the Colonel pulling back the covers for her, waiting for her to get in.

_A kiss laid to her brow, pure and precious as any fine, holy thing._

He asks her one more time, she thinks he would beg her if he had no care for her contentment, to tell her what it is that ails her, and she whispers into the dark that she is cold.

_The room is balmy and warm with the heat of the coming summer._

But her holds her to him and gives her all the heat he can muster, and she takes it, drifting off into yet another restless sleep.

~

 _When the fever comes, she welcomes the pain as though it is a mercy to her._

_Willoughby._

_Her dreams turn strange and slow, dark, thundering things that will not allow her to sleep in peace.  Blackness like bruises coats the sky, or perhaps her eyelids as she floats on air that is thick as a cloud, and she just wants to allow it to carry her away. Far, far away from here, away from the pain, away from the ache that will not let her rest._

_But there is a voice, and the voice makes her stay._

_She never can tell what it says.  Never can say whose it is, but it is there, a constant, never-wavering presence in her dreams, and it convinces her to bear the ache beyond all reason and all hope of a merciful end._

_The voice is there, and no matter how she tries, she cannot make it go away._

_~  
_

That morning, it is her turn to sleep unreasonably late.

When she does finally rise, she feels entirely out of sorts.  Strange.  _Tired._

She does not take the trouble to call for a maid to help her dress, does her best the with laces by herself, leaves her hair down and long against her back and only pins it back at the sides.

 _Who is to fault her?  Who is to see?_

She is not hungry when the housekeeper offers her breakfast, though the sun is high in the sky and tells her it is nearer time for midday meal. 

She looks out the window in the library instead; stares out of it for a very long time, and yet cannot see a single thing. 

_She sees a garden, and a child she tries so very hard to convince herself looks much more like Elinor than herself._

Of course, she must have dreamt of Elinor’s baby. Her sister is growing very near her time, after all.

_But the child looked so very fair, and Edward is so very dark._

Restless—yes, she is restless.  Can feel it in her bones like a strange fever, yet can think of nothing to do that will dissolve it.

She cannot read; cannot focus her mind for it. 

And the window holds nothing for her but thoughts she does not wish to think.

_She lays her fingers against the white keys of the piano, but no notes come to her, so she must rifle through the sheets of melodies that await her within the bench._

And finds it.

Swallows, then mouths the words.

_No scorn, or pity on me take._

She can hear the notes in her mind, and so coaxes them to life with her fingers against the keys.

He is watching her by the time she is through. She can feel it, and knows it with a certainty when he turns the final page for her.

_Why is he always watching her?  Sometimes she wishes he was not quite so attentive._

Because it always feels as though he can read her mind.

But he says nothing, and she is grateful, because if he asks her one more time if she is well, she thinks she may all apart entirely before him, and then he will be convinced that she has truly been damaged beyond repair.

Merely shakes her head, clears it.  Rises, and smiles briefly for him, then goes in search of a bracing cup of tea, because she feels so oddly fragile, she thinks she may break apart at any moment.

She does not, but it proves a very close thing. 

~

_She dreams strange dreams the night Elinor begs her not to die._

_Dreams of hills and rain, poetry.  Dreams of being very cold, and very lost._

_Dreams of the lilting rhythm of footsteps and the sound of darkening thunder._

_She is very frightened, and there is so much pain._

_She just wishes it would all go away; wishes she will never have to wake._

_~  
_

Elinor struggles cruelly through the long night, but when morning breaks, she holds a pink, squirming son in her arms.

Marianne wipes tears from her cheeks, exhausted from hours of helping her sister through her travail, but so, _so_ happy.

_Beautiful._

When the time comes for Elinor to rest, to sleep in peace at last, Marianne takes the child from her sister’s room and soothes him in the drawing room of the small parsonage.

Colonel Brandon has come to visit.

She holds the fussy child, still reddened from his birth. Rocks him and lulls him into a deep sleep with vague memories of Margaret as a very small child, and when Edward and the Colonel turn to her, she presents a father with his son and her husband with her deepest joy, this miracle that his generosity has wrought.

_She wants to thank him, but knows somehow, deep within her, that he would not wish it of her.  He has no desire for her gratitude in this.  Only for Elinor’s happiness.  And hers._

So she smiles at him instead, showing him the sweet baby’s face, and she thinks that her husband’s soft smile at the sight of the child will haunt her for the remainder of her days.

They leave with the doctor, or the doctor leaves with them, she can hardly tell, but she kisses the baby’s sweet brow and knows that she will return often to hold his warm weight in her arms and watch him grow.

As they make the walk back to Delaford, she holds the Colonel’s arm and thinks of his kindness; his selflessness.  Thinks of the piano in the sitting room at Barton Cottage and long days passed reading poetry to an ill girl who never was anything but disagreeable in his presence.

_Thinks of his hands, fingers so gentle on the baby’s brow.  Only she and that child will ever know just how tender Colonel Brandon’s hands can be.  How wonderfully warm._

He has stroked her brow just so on too many occasions to count, and she has both dreaded and longed for it in turns. 

He would make the very best of fathers. 

She cannot tell where the thought has come from, cannot tell if it has been stewing within her for months or has only just occurred to her now, but she knows it to be an irrefutable truth the moment she thinks it, and it fills her with something very akin to sadness.

 _To grief._

She swallows as she thinks of Willoughby, who already has a child by now, though the poor, innocent thing has no name nor father to claim it, and Marianne does not know if it is a boy or a girl.

In fact, he must have _two_ children by now, for surely he has taken his wife to bed with all due haste to get himself an heir.

Colonel Brandon has never seemed concerned by his want of an heir, but she can see it on his face sometimes, when he looks at her with too much fondness—too much _love_ to bear.

Can recognize it in the joy he shares with Edward at the birth of Elinor’s baby.

He has never once taken her to bed though, has never done anything more than _kiss_ her, and even then, only with the utmost tenderness, as though she is a fragile thing that might float away.

_A precious thing, though she does not feel it.  No, she thinks she shall always feel like dirty rags when faced with his goodness.  He is too good, and she is far, far too selfish._

And she wonders again, for what must be the thousandth time, _why_ it is he has chosen her. He could have had anyone, could have had any London girl, any Devonshire girl, could have had _Elinor,_ in fact, but he would only ever have her. 

Why?

She asks herself the same question that night as she sits on her side of the bed and attempts to brush her hair but finds that her hands are too sore from Elinor’s squeezing to work out all the tangles from her curls. 

She huffs and tosses the brush away.

Can she do  _nothing_ as she ought?

Lucy Ferrars is with child also.  Lucy Ferrars, and in all likelihood Sophia Willoughby, and now Elinor has given Edward a fine, healthy son.

_And Colonel Brandon asks nothing of her but to be happy, to be content in his love, and she can find only failure for him at her every attempt._

And then he is there, and he hums a question at her, deep in his throat.

 _She cannot answer him._  But he looks at her hands, sees that they are tired and sore, and fetches her brush from its abandonment on the pillows before settling himself behind her and running his fingers through her hair.

_And she must close her eyes against the shame of it.  The shame of his gentleness, because it is not his place to brush tangles from her hair.  It is a maid’s place, or her own, but he settles himself behind her and applies himself to the task as though it is his pleasure, and in doing so makes her feel so very small._

Like a kiss to her brow on her wedding night. Too pure for someone as wretched as her.

She has croaked the question before she can think better of it, and snaps her mouth closed in mortification as soon as she does.

 _“Why?”_

“Why?”, he asks her, and she knows without looking that his brow has furrowed and a crease has formed between his eyes.  He asks her why what, and she cannot tell what she meant to ask.

_Why is he here, why is he so endlessly good?  Why is his touch so gentle, and his demands so small?_

_Why did he come for her in the rain?_

She cannot.

But what she does ask is hardly any better.

“Why did you marry me?  I have never been good enough, and you have asked nothing of me that a husband should expect of a wife.”

A whisper, and there is physical pain in the saying of it. Her throat is too thick, her eyes ache so. 

_He stops._

And she cannot breathe.

He tells her very softly that she knows why, and she does, truly but she asks him again anyway, and he tells her in a voice that has gone impossibly quiet and that is closer to an unbearable ache than anything she has ever heard, that _he loves her._  

And she fills her lungs with air that is a trial to breathe. 

_Why?_

She asks it again, asks it as though he has not already answered her,

And when he sighs, he sounds in such pain that she opens her mouth to take it back, to tell him he needn’t answer, though she thinks she will  _die_ if she never knows, but he says—

 _Why does anyone ever love,_ he tells her, _but simply because they must?_

And she wants to weep for him, because he has chained himself to her, chained his _heart_ to her.

Can still feel his hands at her shoulders, and turning, takes one, drawing it into her lap to stare at the lines upon it.

Swallows thickly and seeks composure she so rarely possesses. 

“Mrs. Jennings will be insufferable now.”, she tells him with a forced laugh.  “she always goes on about where one sister leads, the other must follow.” 

_She asks after a baby nearly every time Marianne has the displeasure of meeting her._

She cannot read his expression.

“I will never hurt you.”, he finally tells her after a great hesitation.  She knows she has confused him hopelessly—she has confused even herself—and she hopes harder than she thinks she has ever hoped anything in her life that her face shows him her innermost thoughts as she replies.

“Of course not.”, she whispers.  “I never thought you would.”

_Ever.  She will believe goodness of him until her very last.  He must know it now, after everything._

They each take a breath, and something very small seems to ease between them.  She fingers the curls he has smoothed with her brush, and he sighs and says she must be relieved that Elinor is well.

_Oh yes.  So very relieved.  So very grateful._

And— _remembers._

Beth, she asks.  How has Beth fared in her own travail?  _A daughter or a son?_

And he sighs again.  She thinks she has coaxed more of those mournful breaths from him than any person should have a right to, but he tells her that Beth is well.

_A son._

She supposes his name will be John, though she does not say it.

Then _she_ sighs, because everyone, it seems has been busily birthing babies while she has been dying in the rain, and he looks to her with a creased frown.

“You need not—” he begins, then stops at whatever it is he sees in her expression.

“Need not what?”

_Need not ask after his son._

He says it in kinder words; gently.  But she hears it plainly nonetheless.

And is so terribly sorry for it.

Is _angry_ because of it.

“I am not _in love_ with him.”, she bites out, then bites her tongue, because it has run quite rampant of late.

They _never_ speak of him.

Closes her eyes so she will not have to see whatever expression her words have summoned to his face.  Disbelief, perhaps?  Irritation?   _Anger?_

 _Let it be anything but pity._

It is, in fact, a pondering one, and she sighs yet again, because he is looking at her, and as she has started the entire mess, she supposes she must now finish it before either of them is allowed any sleep.

_She is so tired._

“I—perhaps I was, once.  But not now—not anymore.  And even when I was…”

 _Even when she was, she may have been in love with him, but she has seen the Colonel’s eyes now, has read his poems and borne his love, and she thinks that even if she was once in love with John Willoughby, she never truly_ loved _him. Not like the Colonel loves her._

His hand pets her hair, and then he is rising, snuffing out their candles, and she thinks that all of this was so much easier when they were newly married and strangers still.

Now she knows him.  _Now she cares._

When he lies down beside her in the darkness, she has already rolled onto her front, her faced buried in the pillows, and she feels his kiss laid against her hair.

_Heart.  Beat. Ache.  Release._

_“You must know,” he tells her, “how very much you are loved.”_

_And she swallows, long and painful._

_“Yes.”, she says.  Hoarse._

_Yes, she knows._

_But sometimes she wishes she did not._

_~  
_

_Everything is a sea of pain when she wakes, but the pain is a cleansing sort; the kind that must always preclude a recovery, and not a slow descent._

_There is Elinor, and Mama, and—_

_And she knows, almost as soon as she thinks his name, sees his face._

_She knows._

_Cold.  Arms. Rain._

_A very long walk._

_And a voice that would not allow her to fade away._

_“Colonel Brandon.”_

_Everything is pain, but for the first time in she cannot remember how long, she thinks that she might not wish to die._

_“Thank you.”_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget to let me know what you think!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok guys, I really hope you like this one, 'cause I suspect it's what a lot of you have been waiting for...
> 
> Don't forget to leave a comment!
> 
> \--Roe.

The morning that follows brings no rest or refreshment at all, but only a head that feels as though it shall throb for the remainder of her life and bones that ache as though she has reached some great age with only the passing of the night.

She is famished, almost weak with hunger, but when a maid brings her a tray—has the Colonel told them she is ill?—she cannot bring herself to eat even one bite, it leaves her stomach rolling.

_Ill.  Perhaps she truly is?_

And he is gone; is not there to see her wake.

She wants to believe it was all a horrible, wretched dream.  Remembers her wedding night, the kiss—and the dreading of it. 

 _The hopefulness that perhaps none of it could be real._

Now she can still feel his lips on the back of her head, just there, against her hair.

_You must know how very much you are loved._

She rises, cannot bear to remain in the bed a moment longer, and walks to his bookshelf, is met with his poetry, _his Shakespeare,_ and abruptly turns from it once more.

_To the bed once more._

_Cannot bear to face it._

_To the fire._

_Remembers being held there.  Being warmed against his chest._

_To the window.  From which she can see the hills little Christopher once played upon, carefree._

Paces the room like an echo unable to escape, finding nowhere safe from the thought of him.

_Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds._

Or bends with the remover to remove. 

How stubborn he has always been.  She has never seen it in a such a light before, has never deemed it only sheer force of will, but she thinks she shall now.  He has loved her, and does love her, and will continue to love her in spite of all, because he cannot alter when he alteration finds or bend with the remover to remove.

And she— 

Well, she _something._   She has wed him, has grown terribly… _fond_ of him. 

Misses him, perhaps, when he is not there.

_Is afraid of him.  Never of his anger or his demands, for he has none of those._

Of his kindness; his tenderness.

Some days she _hates_ them.

Some days she feels as though they will shatter her into pieces. 

But on very particular days she knows they are the only things holding her together, and she is grateful for them.  For _him._

But this morning— _this morning—_ she cannot tell whether she is right side up, or hanging upside down.  Nothing is right with the world, and she dreads going downstairs to face her husband.

_You must know how very much you are loved._

But she swallows, because she cannot remain tucked away in their room forever, no matter how very much she would like to. He will think her ill, and come to tend to her.

So she straightens her spine and braces herself to face him as she clutches the banister in her hand and slowly descends the stairs.

He is not there though.  The housekeeper tells her he has left her alone, and will not be back all the day.

~ 

_He watches her as she sleeps, soothes her when her dreams arrive and trouble her, and he wonders what it is that plagues her mind at night, after such a trying day._

_Wonders if she will remember her dreams come morning, even as they make her toss restlessly in the night, and it requires arms and low-pitched murmurings to soothe her uneasily back into stillness._

_He worries for her._

_Holds her._

_Lays his cheek against her soft hair as she whimpers mournfully in her sleep, and he wishes more than anything that he could take her pain from her and make it his own._

_A healthy nephew and an unharmed sister, she has great cause to rejoice today, but he knows—_

_He knows she cannot.  Has watched the light fade from her since the moment they left the parish.  He knows Willoughby has gotten a child on his wife, and if he does, so too, he imagines, does she._

_Oh, if only he could take her pain._

_He would do anything, be anything, give her anything if only she asked, but it seems all he can do is hold her and do his best to chase her dreams away. Helpless, once more, to do anything but wait, and pray for her to heal._

_The greatest pain he has ever known, doubled, for the second time._

_The terrible pain of love._

_~  
_

She does not know what to do with herself; they have been wed for _months,_ and not once has he left her alone for the day. 

She wanders the house, but somehow it seems useless to play music with no one there to listen, or to read a book while he is not beside her reading his own.

_Foolish girl.  He is one of the most important men in the county.  Of course, he has business to attend to.  She can only imagine how it must be piled up from all the time he has avoided it in order to spend his days tending to her._

She eventually does find it within herself to eat, and so biscuits and butter are set before her before she is left entirely to herself for the day.  Once she has filled her belly the silence of the house seems to close around her like a fog, shutting out any light or warmth, leaving her feeling as though she is within the walls of a church.

_Or a tomb._

She trails the halls, looks deeply into the eyes of fifty portraits she has already seen what feels like a thousand times before.

Finds herself in the library, but does not stay. It is too big for her alone.

More portraits, and she is in the drawing room with nothing to occupy her, and so she seeks out the company of still more portraits, until she finds herself at the door of a room she seldom enters, and never alone. 

 _Colonel Brandon’s study._

There is a reverence hanging above her as she pushes the door open and enters, and she finds that even her breaths have shallowed in an effort to keep her disturbances to a minimum.

She has, of course, seen the room before, seen the books covering the walls,—he always seems to be surrounded by leather spines—seen the rich, wooden desk and the hearth that always has a fire blazing in it come evening.  But she has never seen the room without him _in_ it, and the sight is a jarring one. 

His desk.  It is covered in papers, in letters, and she is fingering the edge of one before she can stop herself, feeling the thickness of the paper, how fine it is.  Seeing scrawling words about land and incomes.

Another paper. 

Another.

She tries to discern which ones are in his hand, but the task is a steep one as she only ever sees his hand written just inside the cover of books.  _Christopher._

And sometimes, Eliza.

There is, in fact, a book on his very desk, and she huffs to herself when she sees what it is.

_Let me not to the marriage of true minds…_

Of course, he would keep a copy even here. 

She holds it, strokes the spine, runs her fingernail along the edges of the pages, turns to whatever sonnet will fall open before her, and sees to her astonishment that he has annotated this copy so heavily, she can scarcely make out the printed words.

And dated each entry.

Her steps are quick as she carries the little volume back to the library, purposeful has she clutches the thing in her hands.

Once seated, she pages through it, one verse at a time, and sees that there is no rhyme or rhythm to his notetaking.  They are not in order according to date, or theme, or verse. 

Three years ago, he scrawled great masses of ink across sonnet seventy-three.  _When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang._

He is not _old._  Not so very advanced as the poem waxes on about, anyway.  She has known him to hunt for days and days, to ride for hours on end without ceasing. He is not so aged as all that.

A little further in, and she begins to realize what it is that she holds. 

_Almost two years ago, and there are notes upon notes on the nature of love. Enchantment at first sight.  The beauty and wonder of the young.  And the date—yes—the date, though she cannot remember precisely, can only be when they first met._

She holds…holds his very _thoughts._   Fingers frantic, more pages turning, and she can trace the dates all throughout the months of their acquaintance, and oh, how she remembers more of him in the time before London!  How she wishes she had her own recollections to go alongside his.

He writes of love.

He writes of beauty. 

He writes of unending longing pain. 

Quotes underlined, traced in black ink, scribbled between.  Poetry of the blessedness of youth and the weariness of age.

_His thoughts, the ones that live in the very inner chambers of his heart, and oh, how they steal her breath from her, like a thousand-thousand kisses, all at once._

She reads until she can read no more, and then she sits and thinks upon what it is she has read.  The pages of the little book are worn with use; he has loved it well.  And within its pages, every date a testament of the truth, he has loved _her_ well.

 _All those days with Willoughby, every song and poem, Colonel Brandon was writing his love for her, his longing that he thought to never soothe, across the pages of Shakespeare, his feelings far deeper than either hers or her handsome lover’s._

He gifted her a piano and beautiful, aching music to play.

And he carried her for miles in the pouring rain, and she will never be free of the memory of it.

Sonnet one-hundred-sixteen is marked with the date of their marriage. 

She does not realize her eyes have welled up until a tear strikes the page, marring a love.

She folds the book closed again, rests her aching head against the back of the chair she sits in and allows her eyes to finally close. 

 _Colonel Brandon._

He is so quiet, so calm, and warm, and kind, but sometimes he catches her by surprise, like a book with love notes scribbled on its pages or a wretched walk in the rain, and he pains her so, very deep in her breast.

_How is it that he can hurt her so by only being kind; by loving her?_

How is it that he can steal the breath out from her very lungs?

Sometimes it feels as though he is filling her; sinking into her so deeply that she will surely burst, only to find that there is room in her yet for more of him.

 _How?_

It is like no passion she has ever known.  But then, she supposes he has taught her more of passion simply by showing her restraint in the face of his own than she ever knew before she wed him.  She has never known love like this, has never even _read_ of love like this, so sweet, and tender, and aching.  

She never loved Willoughby like this, which, in turn, causes her to question whether she ever truly loved Willoughby at all. 

 _She…perhaps once.  But not now—not anymore.  And even if she did…_

It was _never_ like this.

Never like Colonel Brandon,—like her _husband—_ who is somehow capable of breaking her heart and keeping it so very safe, simultaneously.

_She misses him.  Longs for his return.  Only realizes it as she thinks that he will probably not be back until deep into the night._

And without meaning to, she slips into a deep, dark sleep.

~

_He never does tell her how badly she frightens him._

_Does not tell her the very first day, nor the day she nearly dies in his arms, nor on their wedding day while he stands beside her at an alter and vows to love her forever._

_But she has cast deep, dangerous fear into the very heart of him since the first moment he saw her, so young and bright.  She sits in the sunlight at a piano, and that brightness turns into an aching warmth with an alarming swiftness, too quick for him to stop it before it reaches his heart._

_She smiles, and it feels as though the sun has come out after a storm that has lasted a lifetime._

_He stays away, maintains a distance he hopes will conceal any foolish attachment on his part, but when they dine together at Barton, he cannot help but watch carefully for the moment she chooses to smile.  Must strain his ear for every note she plays, because she is pouring her heart into an instrument for all to hear, and none of them hear it in her music._

_And the sight of her…_

_An old ache, held tight to his chest, tender and shy of any renewal of its pain._

_She is young, and bright, and beautiful, and everything good and lovely in her is enough to convince him that she will never consider a tired, quiet, confirmed bachelor when she may have any man she desires._

_And then the young man comes, and it leaves him heartsore._

_But she is so, so happy, so he ceases his visits and keeps his flowers, his books and his music to himself, and he watches from afar as she flings herself wholly and innocently into passionate love, the way another who was precious to him once did.  He knows that look in her eye, the sweet light, all too well, for another once looked at him with the very same shining out from her like the sun._

_But no more.  Failure, and pain, and death, and Marianne Dashwood would no more think of him than she would of John._

_So he leaves her be and seeks only to be kind to her and her own from afar._

_And all the better for her._

_~  
_

She feels a hand, gentle on her cheek, and for a breath, she believes it to be a dream.

But then she starts, wakes, and no, it is no dream. He has returned, is home with her once more, and she—

_Is holding a book containing his innermost thoughts, the feelings of his heart, and his hands are resting over hers on its spine in her lap._

She blushes, blinks. 

_She never meant to fall asleep.  And so early in the day._

“Are you cold?”, he asks her, and she requires a moment to make sense of it.  _Cold?_

Oh.  The fire has gone out. 

But she tells him no, because she is not cold. Not at all.  And he nods.

She waits for him to speak of it, of the book she holds, and when she feels his fingers close around hers she thinks that he will surely take it from her and she will never see it again, but he does not.  He only holds her, her fingers.  Kneels at her feet as though resting there, and she finally thinks to ask after his day. 

Busy.

Trying. 

 _Long._

He is tired, she can see, and she herself fell asleep at hardly past midday, so they make their way to the bedchamber, and by the time she comes out from behind the screen clothed in her nightdress, he sits before the fire with a newspaper in his hands.

She still has his collection of sonnets in her hands, unsure of what to do with it since he has not taken it away.

But she goes to him, because they have passed many a pleasant night by the fire, his voice bringing printed words on the page to life, and she reaches for the corner of the paper, to peel it back and read what he does, but he shies from her, and she can see when his eyes fly to her that he has been totally engrossed by whatever is on the page, and did not hear her approach.

_He holds the paper away from her now, and she frowns, worried.  He has never before attempted to conceal a thing from her._

“I—”

But he has relented before she can speak any words beyond that, has sighed and straightened out the paper that has become crumpled in his effort to keep it from her, and looks at her with such a strange, stoic expression as he offers it to her that she finds herself quite fearful of what she will find in its pages.

She opens it and reads, nevertheless.

It takes her long, drawn moments to find what he had not wanted her to see.

_The lady of Mr. John Willoughby has been safely delivered of a son and heir._

She too, wishes to sigh, but keeps herself from it, knowing that he will think it some foolish grief or pain, and that is what she least desires of all.

She folds it carefully, and taking a seat in her own chair, places it in her lap and attempts to look him full in the face, though sometimes she feels as though such a feat is akin to peering too closely at the sun.

“You needn’t be… _careful_ with me.  I spoke truly before; I am not in love with him.  And if I ever was, well…it was not like you.”

He looks at her, makes to speak, a gnawing question as visible in him as his hair or his eyes, but then she watches as he thinks better of it and quiets himself.

But she does not let him; _insists_ he ask it, because she thinks she will burst into flame and burn away if he does not.

So he asks her what she can possibly mean by it.  _It was not like him._   And then she truly does sigh. 

_How is she to explain it to him when she can hardly understand it herself?_

She is still clutching his book.

“People…people like us—”  People like _her._  Like Edward, like Willoughby. Maybe even Elinor; Marianne does not know.  “We do not know how to love the way you do.  You were so faithful to Eliza for so many years.  And then—”

She swallows, and tries to find words for how it is he has loved her. 

There are none.

“I did not love him the way you love me,” she tells him, “because I do not know how to love like that.  None of us do.” 

And there it is.  Why she did not love Willoughby, and why she fears that nothing she feels for her husband will ever be enough.

He seems to taste her words, then his own; seems to deliberate for a long while before choosing just the ones that suit what he wants for her to hear. 

Her belly burns with a dreadful anticipation, so potent, she thinks she will lose her breath and never get it back.

“Do not think too highly of me, Marianne.”, he tells her very quietly, and with a deep furrow in his brow.  “My heart can be as selfish as any other’s.”

And she can only gape. 

 _Selfish?_

She does not realize she has spoken it aloud until he raises a questioning eyebrow at her.  When she does, all she can do is stutter until she finds more words, words to tell him how very _mistaken_ he is.

She tells him he is the very furthest thing from selfish she has ever known.

“You are—you are _too_ good.”, she huffs, a frustrated edge reaching her tone.  “So good that I can only feel small, and dirty, and _ugly_ beside you, and it can only pain me to know that I will never be able to repay how kind you have been to me.” 

 _He never requires anything of her in return, but oh, of late she wishes he would. It would allow her to give something to him in return, though any requirement of his would undoubtedly be his by right to begin with._

She whispers the last part, and her voice is hardly more than a breath when she sets words about his unclaimed rights to hanging between them. 

He stares at her, as though he has never looked upon her before; aghast. 

 _“Marianne,_ _I am no saint.”_

 _“Yes,”_ she whispers hoarsely in reply; in protest.  _“Yes, you are.”_   But he does not believe her; does not _hear_ her, and she can see it in every inch of his face, so she must _act._   She has no bravery of her own, it has been leeched from her by heartbreak and pain, but there is not a soul in the world kinder or more loving than her husband, and so she will never forgive herself if she proves too cowardly to show him just who she knows in her very deepest being that he is.

She has risen and moved before the uneasiness sets fully into her belly.  She stands before him for a moment, unsure of herself, but then forces boldness from her and perches herself on the arm of his chair as though she is Marianne of seventeen once more, and not the one presently nearing twenty and wise enough to know better.

 _What use is knowing better if it leaves a good man alone to suffer?  She has caused Colonel Brandon pain enough._

Her hands; they are slow as she raises them to the sides of his face, cupping his jaw.  She remembers all the nights he has done the same to her, both a torment and a comfort, and her throat grows so thick that she cannot swallow.

_Husband._

She lowers her mouth so that she may whisper into his ear. “You are the kindest, the very _best_ of men, and I could live a thousand lifetimes and still never be worthy of you.” 

Her words are fierce and true, and they tremble with determination to make him _hear_ her.  For if she fails at this, at this small repayment to an account that can never hope to be balanced, then there is no hope for her yet, and there never will be.

So before he can find his own words to rebuff and disprove her, she drags her lips from the air very near to his ear, and presses them as softly and as sweetly into his as she is able.

_And feels the breath leave him from his nose to her cheeks in a long, slow release. He is slow with her, careful, but she has told him not to be and almost huffs that he will not obey._

She presses harder. 

Tilts her head to better fit herself against him and feels his hand find her long braid, his other warm at her back.

When their lips break from one another, she does not afford him the chance to speak.  With her cheek pressed tightly against his, she begs him.  Begs him to hear her, to believe what she says.  Begs him not to let go as he holds her and rocks them both.

She begs him to _please,_ take the only thing she can give.  Not in so many words, perhaps, but she says _please, please, let me give you something.  Anything.  You give me so much, it hurts that you will not take anything in return._

And her lips find his again. 

She scarcely knows herself in the moment; scarcely knows what she says, but she knows with utter certainty that every word of it is true.

There is a pain in her, and it is one that only her husband can reach. 

 _Please._  She cannot be a half-wife to him any longer.  It breaks whatever is left of her heart to cause him pain.

And this time, when their lips touch, it is _he_ who is kissing _her._  

She feels warm as his mouth moves against hers. Warmer still when she attempts to press closer and he pulls away, a _Marianne_ muffled against her hair, a protest tucked within it, though it goes unheeded by her.  She is no longer perched upon the arm of his chair, but has instead found her way into the warmth of his lap. 

She tells him.  Tells him that his pain is shattering her; that knowing she is the cause of it will wound her so deeply, she will never recover, and whatever he begins to whisper against her hair in the dark is cut off by a series of brief meetings between their lips.

She is shocking herself.  His kisses—they are familiar.  But this… _whatever_ it might be, is most certainly not.  This gasping thing that has breathed itself to life inside of her, this searching, warm thing in the dark.  She does not know it.  It is…not at all as she expected it to be. 

Not loud, fiery, desperate, and not a stifled, unbearable duty to be sacrificed against white sheets.

It is a quiet, _aching_ thing, and more than anything, she wants to _give._   She wants him to have Edward’s happiness, that shining love that stretches between her friend and her sister.  She wants her husband to have it.

She wants the Colonel to hold his own son the next time he is presented with a child, because she can see the hunger there, can feel it in his every heartbeat and has since the moment she woke from a fever that should have killed her.

_She wants to give him that.  She thinks she will die if she cannot._

And so suddenly, she is more terrified by it than she has been of anything in her entire life, she thinks that such a desperation to provide comfort, and joy must be a feeling very akin to love.

_Oh God._

She gasps, wrenches herself away from his reluctant, hungry kisses.  Oh _God._  

Her hands are still at his jaw, and she runs her thumb over his bottom lip, her eyes fixated upon it.  _His dear, sweet face.  How wonderful it is to her.  Kind.  And his eyes; she knows very well that they grow bright only when she smiles for him._

And she _loves_ the way they shine.

She thinks, for a moment, that her chest will surely explode. 

It is impossible.  She _cannot_ be falling in love. She is incapable of it.  Has proven herself to be so over the years of her failure to cause him anything but misery and pain.

But here she is, nevertheless, and her soul is aching for him in a way it has never tendered for anything before.

She cannot tell, one way or the other, but she knows that he is staring at her as surely as she is at him, and she knows that she will never forgive herself if she proves a coward now, so she decides that for the moment, for the next heartbeat, for just this one night, at least, she will love him like she has loved nothing ever before, and like she will love nothing ever again.

She never thought love was a choice, before.  But she has seen her husband choose to love her, in spite of all, time and time again.  All things considered, she thinks the task of choosing to love him must be vastly easier than the one he has always made to remain in love with her.

 _“Kiss me.”,_ she whispers into the thin air between them, and he whispers her name one more time.

_Marianne._

And it is a broken, desperate thing, issued from a shattered face, and she knows all about being both broken and desperate.

So she kisses him instead, and imagines pouring every piece of her heart into him through her lips against his.

~

_He feels her fingers against his, soft and rough melting like wax against one another as she takes hold of him and leads him to their bed as she has only done in longing dreams that he pushes far from himself as soon as he wakes._

_She is beautiful; the loveliest thing he has ever seen, held, and he fears hurting her above all._

_But she whispers that he is hurting her regardless, and he knows, has seen so much of her heartbreak, cried so many of her tears with her, he thinks that he will try anything to soothe her pain._

_And he longs for her more than he has ever longed for anything in his long, solitary life._

_When she pulls him down to sink into the bed beside her, he falls into her kiss as easily as slipping into a dream, and it is nothing but exquisite pain and unparalleled pleasure as he has never known._

_~  
_

She cannot tear her eyes from his as he cups her skull and lowers her to the pillows. 

He is atop her, he is kissing her, and they have been here before, his face tucked tight against hers, but never once has it been like _this._

His lips on hers, and this time he sucks her bottom lip between his own and makes her gasp break into a startled whimper that sounds more like a shout to her ears.

 _It is not at all like her poetry.  Too real, too sharp and aching.  There are far too many emotions tied up between them to be sketched into lines and stanza by a pen full of words._

Another kiss, and when he leaves her and pulls inches back, she finds her neck straining, trembling in reaching for him, trying to make him return. 

When he does return, it is to her temple instead of her lips.

Her ear.

_Her pulse._

_The place on her throat where her neck bends into her shoulder, his nose tucked against that curve._

And she can only gasp and hold him to her with her fingers in his hair and unspoken words heavy on her tongue.

Every so often, he still whispers it; _Marianne.  My Marianne._

From her throat to her collar, from her collar to one button undone, then two, then three.  He does not take her nightdress from her, but he does peel the collar of it back until she feels quite bare and very nearly flinches away from his gaze.

_Her chest is heaving._

But he is so, _so_ gentle.  That crease in his brow is ever-present, and he breathes kisses to her skin as softly as though she is a bird, or an infant, or a crystal.

_His hand on her belly.  Please God, she wants to give him the child he longs for.  Please._

Motherhood terrifies her.  _Please, give me strength._

His nose, his mouth at her clothed breast, and oh, she tries to speak and fails utterly when his kisses land where _no-one_ has ever touched.

_And it is right._

So very right to give him this, and her whole body sings with the relief of it. 

 _Please._  

She stretches her neck, strains it until it pains her, but when she presses her lips to the crown of her head, she finds that his soft sigh is quite worth the discomfort.

He finishes with her breasts, leaves final kisses to them and then looks to her, an unreadable, aching expression covering his face, and she whispers it again— _Kiss me._

He does, and she kisses him, and her lips between his, his brow resting on hers, is pain and pleasure so tangled, she cannot tell where one ends and the other begins.

_His hand.  As his nose finds her temple and nuzzles, her name breathed into her ear, his fingers are finding the hem of her nightdress and slowly easing up, and she knows it for the kindness it is.  He means to give her slowness; a chance to change her mind._

_She does not for a moment waver._

There is a tension in her belly as he touches her there, first with gentle fingers, a soothing whisper in her ear, then with something warm and solid, still gentle, but insistent.  Unyielding.

A moment of discomfort bordering on pain.

He gasps, voice breaking, and when her name finds her ear again, all ragged and aching, it fills her up just as completely as he does in that moment, and all she can feel from the crown of her head to the tip of her toes is _love,_ and it terrifies her to be unable to tell if it is his, or her own.

It does not matter; either way, she weeps as though it has broken her in two.

And feels him lift from her, preparing to withdraw and tend to her, but wraps her arms around him and whispers the only thing she can think to stop him with into the dark. 

_“I love you.”_

She does not know if it is true. 

She knows beyond a shadow of a doubt. 

_He swallows loudly above her, and he stays._

She watches his pleasure, sees it play out upon his face, as though it is the most beautiful thing she has ever seen.

_Which, it is._

She presses her palm to his cheek when he begins to tremble.

She winds her arms around him when he muffles a cry against her pillow beside her own cheek and clutches at her and though she will vanish.

And she holds his head to her naked breast, her nightgown in utter disarray, while all his strength is made into weakness by his pleasure and the satisfaction of it.  

Eventually he rises from her, lifts his weight off of her, and slides out from her in a slow glide that makes her gasp with the strangeness of it.

He lays a kiss to her hair.

Rises from the bed, and she makes to rise with him but winces at the angle.  She feels quite bruised; _tender._  

 _“Shh.”,_ he tells her.  Bids her wait and the crease in his brow deepens for a moment as he goes to the drawer and fetches a new nightshirt for himself and one for her too, her own nightdresses far across the hall in the chamber for her that she never uses.

She watches him go to the basin too, sees him pour water onto a cloth, averts her gaze as he pulls one nightshirt from his body and replaces it with another, then feels him join her once more on the bed.

He asks her in a voice that has gone unbearably gentle to spread her legs, and despite a blush that shocks her with its intensity, she does as he bids, burning red as her husband peers between her legs and wipes something warm and wet from her with tender hands and a soft cloth.

He offers her the nightshirt, but she feels utterly incapable of anything so complicated as undressing and redressing herself, and so, with a swallow, simply lifts her arms in a clear gesture for him to do it for her.

She is warm with a flush for the brief moments she is naked before him in their marriage bed.  He is kind to her though, and simply folds her ill-used nightdress and unfolds his clean nightshirt that she knows without looking will be far too large for her.  He gathers it into a circle of cloth that will be easy for her to slide into, and then there is a very still moment during which she looks at him and he looks at her, and he is clothed, and she is bare, and he has just been _inside of her,_ and she has just told her husband that she loves him, though she scarcely knew she did just hours ago, and is unsure yet if she truly does now. 

_She has never before thought of love as a choice, but if she ever were to choose, she knows without the slightest doubt that she would choose to love her husband above all._

Then he is tucking her into his nightshirt, threading her arms through the sleeves like a child, and she is leaning into his chest and pleading hoarsely for him to hold her.

_Please, God._

She does not know what it is she is asking for.

But when her husband folds her up in his arms and strokes her hair, when he leans down and kisses her brow, just as he has done every night of their marriage, she thinks God must have granted it to her.

_~_

_What Marianne does not remember, what the fever burned to ashes and stole from her while she slept, is this._

_The rain is cold and cruel, and she knows she is going to die.  Longs for it._

_Somewhere between heaven and hell, hands come to her and lift her to warmth and a body.  There is a rhythm, footsteps, and arms that hold her close, and a voice that she knows well, and yet not at all._

_Colonel Brandon is carrying her, and she only wants to die._

_Hates him for forcing her to live with his words that never, ever stop._

_He tells her of his Eliza, of his Beth.  Tells her of herself; of how long and hopelessly he has loved her._

_Later, when she asks him for answers he has already given her in the cold of the rain, he will realize what the fever stole from her, the memories, and the knowledge will make him more careful, more tender with her than he ever thought he could be._

_With every step toward warmth and safety he whispers it again._

_“Marianne.”_

_Staggering steps._

_“My love.”_

_His arms tighten about her.  
_

_“Do not leave me.”_

_Whispers it until it beats against the inside of her skull, until she hears it like her own heartbeat.  Says it like a prayer over and over._

_Gives it to her until she wants to say it back._

_And even when he is gone, when the fire has been lit, and the doctor bleeds crimson from her and counts the beats of her pulse; after the Colonel has gone from the house in a frantic race to her mother, she still thinks she can hear it, just near her ear._

_“Marianne, my love, do not leave me alone.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, long time, no see!
> 
> Sorry about the long wait, but my muse took an unexpected, extended leave of absence, and just returned yesterday with a vengeance. Anyway, I wrote this last night and I have a tiny feeling that some of you are really going to like it.
> 
> I hope you do!
> 
> \--Roe

She does not feel it—the slide from dreams into waking. Quite suddenly, she is warm and comfortable with a pillow beneath her head and her husband’s arm draped comfortably over her middle, and it is like every other morning that has greeted her since she has made her home at Delaford with the Colonel. 

She does not remember for many long moments—the things that passed between them last night.  Does not think anything of the small circles his finger traces over the back of her hand, the shape of his nose nestled in her hair.  They wake like this often; curled into one another in their sleep, slowly separating once they wake.  In the middle of winter, it was the work of not even a moment to blame their closeness on the chill in the air and the dwindling of the fire, but now they are well into spring, and she has yet to think of an excuse for the way her body seems drawn to him without her permission, night after night seeking out his warmth. 

When she shifts, moving her head into a more sensible, more comfortable resting place, he stills behind her, and she with him. He does not draw gently away, as he always has before.  He does not leave her to ready for the day with a kiss to her hair and a ‘good morning, wife.’

He splays his hand wide and warm across her middle, and it sends something deep in her belly curling and helpless.

When he finally does whisper good morning, she hears his voice, and she remembers.

_His lips on hers, on her jaw, on her throat, on her breasts._

_His hands, careful, and tender._

_His voice, hoarse and broken._

_His body, trembling and inside of her._

She gasps without a breath, and she knows he can feel it. There is a dull, aching soreness in her; deep and a constant reminder.  _Oh God,_ he lies behind her, and suddenly all she can feel is him; his hands, his breath, his lips so close to her skull.  She wishes he would say something; something more than simply a ‘good morning, wife’ as he does every morning.  She remembers…remembers _kissing_ him.

_Remembers saying please._

Oh _God,_ what must he think of her?

But…he is holding her close; is not letting go of her, and her heart is beating so hard against her ribs, she imagines he must feel it.

She wants to speak, wants to _ask,_ but she cannot make her tongue move.  Not even to wet her lips.

There…is nothing she can do.  Nothing she can say.  She cannot make herself rise—not while he is holding her so close—and she cannot speak because her voice has utterly left her.  So she does the only thing left to her.  She forces a sigh from her lungs, forces muscles that have tensed beyond the limits of comfort to soften and calm.  She breathes deeply and wills her racing heart to quiet.

And she takes every bit of warmth caught between her back and his chest, and tries to remember the safety that she knows to be her husband.

It is terrifying; so very difficult to lie calmly against him and let him hold her, but she does.  

And he…he tucks her into the cradle of his body, kisses her hair again, and presses his cheek against hers.  After a while, he brings a careful hand to the bottom of her chin and coaxes her into turning her face toward his.

She sees him and the sight takes her aback.  He looks…wary.  Concerned.  “Are you well?” he asks her very softly, and she swallows.  Nods.  Why should she not be?

She reaches up to her brow, sweeps a curl away from her eyes, and when she does his nightshirt slips so far down her shoulder, it is almost at her elbow. 

_Oh. She nearly forgot about that.  Nearly forgot, for a moment, that he saw her bare before covering her with his own shirt._

It reaches all the way past her knees, but the more pressing problem is that the neckline reveals more than any ballgown might, no matter how daring. 

He must see her, she thinks.  Must see how her expression has frozen, and must see how her nearly bared breast heaves with startled surprise.

But his eyes only stray from hers for the smallest of moments, and then he is only hers once more, meeting her eyes with a small smile just as he has on countless occasions since their wedding.  He is…everything wonderful, and he makes her long to hide herself from his gaze.

But she cannot.  Aside from the undeniable fact that they are abed together and cannot leave their places without much awkwardness and struggle, she feels as though attempting to do so would be… _wrong._  Dishonest; somehow a sin, after the night they have passed together, after she has held him within her and said… _and said…_

_I love you._

It steals her breath and stings her middle.  She remembers speaking it, and— _and—_ is it true?

She cannot know.

So she sits, instead.  Hauls herself into an upright position amongst their pillows, and he follows her, studying her every move. 

“Are you _certain_ you are well?”, he asks her, and she frowns.

And once more she wonders, why should she not be well?  He has only ever been gentle with her, and the previous night has proven no different.

“Of course.”

And he nods, though she thinks it is not directed at her.  He looks as though her words have only done so much, and he is struggling to convince himself. 

She sighs slowly, fully aware that her time resting comfortably in bed is fast coming to a close. Shifting her weight from one side to the other, she her breath catches as she moves. 

_Oh._

_That—_ that dull, aching soreness, is no doubt the cause of the concerned crease in his brow.  Not quite a pain, but persistent and… _throbbing._  

She tries to bear it without so much as a wince, knowing that any sign of pain from her will wound him far more than he could ever inflict upon her.

She does not _quite_ succeed.

_Oh God, she remembers._

He must see it somewhere, in some corner of her expression, because his face seems to settle into a gentle melancholy as he gazes at her.  He rises, then turns to lend her his hand to help her out of bed without placing her full weight where she is most tender, and she is grateful.

They stand very still together for a heartbeat, then two, and she is put in mind, without any warning at all, of their wedding night. Of standing so close to her husband beside their marriage bed, wary of his touch and dreading of his kiss.

_Oh._

What are they to do now?

He, at least, seems content to leave her to her morning ablutions; the comfort of a maid and—yes, this morning most definitely warrants a bath.

He leaves her, and as she readies, her heart ponders.  And she waits. 

~

The following days are…quiet.

He alternates in a manner that is nothing short of dizzying to her between attentiveness to her every want and need, and solitude, an unobtrusiveness which, she supposes, is just another sort of attentiveness.

He is attending to her need for calm and steadiness; the great wrenching that has lived deep within her for so long, she no longer remembers what it is to be without it. 

She aches. 

The first of it is real, and true, and very nearly _gentle_ between her thighs.  A constant reminder that paints her cheeks a flushed pink whenever she sits in his presence.

But after the first day, it has quite gone.

After, there is only the ache within, and it is far more of a torment than the evidence of her husband within her could ever be. 

Mostly though, she watches her husband, and she waits.

He is always so _still._   Has been so for as long as she has known him, and she finds that she cannot imagine him any other way.  The scratch of his pen against paper is the most noise he makes some afternoons, and likewise, when he reads, or cleans his guns, or takes tea with her, he is never anything but steady.

And she is  _fascinated._  

How— _how_ is he always so immovable?  _And what is it that makes him so constantly pliant to whatever she demands?_

The Colonel is the sort of man who will not be moved through wind, or fire, or rain.  Firm, a bulwark, he is steady to his course, and yet, at a mere word from her lips he will rearrange everything that he is to suite her wishes.

It is a power that leaves her wary.

So she never uses it.  Never demands anything much of him, though she suspects she has unintentionally demanded more than is quite reasonable in the past few days.  _Since they have well and truly shared their marriage bed._  

And _oh,_ their marriage bed. 

It has remained utterly uneventful in the days that have followed the night she demanded of him more than she perhaps had a right to.  He has waited for her amongst their pillows, just as usual, but when her spine was stiff with _something,_ be it anticipation or a wholly unwarranted terror, he simply held her, and kissed her, and whispered _Goodnight wife._   And slept warmly beside her.

And she would be happy—none the wiser—if not for the ache she can see quite clearly in his eyes.

Looking back, she thinks it has been there all the time.  Subtle, gentle.  _Quiet._   Like everything else she has ever known of him. 

But now she knows.  _Now she knows what his pleasure looks like._   Now she knows how deeply and heavily he sleeps after being within her.  How his voice sounds after he has cried out for her. How his muscles, his arms, strong enough to carry her for miles in the rain, tremble with the simple strain of holding himself above her when she welcomes him into her.

She knows it all.  And she sees it all.  Sees it there, in his eyes.  The longing to be _so close_ to her again.

But he never asks.

He only gazes her with that same, quiet melancholy.

She does not think he ever will.

~

A week passes just so.  He loves her, though from a distance.  And she ruminates on what it would be—what it _is—_ to love him in return.

And then, quite suddenly, she cannot bear it anymore.

She is always, _always,_ thinking about it.  Remembering it; how it felt.  How _he_ felt. 

And it is maddening.

They take tea together, and she watches his hands. Remembers where they touched her. She sees his lips, the rim of his cup, and her chest heaves at the memory of them upon her. 

She sets her own teacup on the low-sitting table before the settee with perhaps too much force, but if the clang or china is loud, she finds she does not much care.

She _hates_ that he looks at her with such longing, because all it does is show her just how pitifully she has failed.  _Again._

And there is no need for it.

He need not long so, when she can satisfy him easily enough.  It will please him and cost her nothing.

And… _perhaps,_ if they are together again, she will know better whether the things she said, the things she _felt,_ were true.

Her poor husband need not torture himself for her sake, and the only obstacle now is communicating such a delicate fact to him in their parlor in the middle of the day. 

“I walked to the parsonage today.”, she tells him. “Little Edward is coming along quite well.”

Her sweet nephew.  He is everything good and pure of Elinor, and reminds her not at all of herself.

And her husband smiles.  For what is good for Little Edward, she knows, pleases Elinor. And what pleases Elinor, she knows good and well her husband is aware of, pleases _her._  

And the Colonel has proven constantly devoted to anything and everything that could possibly please his wife.  Sometimes she fears such sweet temperedness is more hindrance than help, but she will never reprimand him for it.  He is too good, and she will only rejoice in his kindness; she knows she deserves it little enough.

He has finished with his tea now, has risen and gone to peruse the bookshelf, though she knows he is as familiar with its contents as he is with his own hand.  Or with the brow— _her brow—_ that he kisses every night.

“And Mrs. Jennings—she is as persistent as ever. She always asks if I have news.”

He stills.

And she cannot blame him.  Sometimes Mrs. Jennings is bold enough to ask the question in front of _company,_ and Marianne’s cheeks flame hot to be forced to address such a matter in the presence of all and sundry.  

_Surely, such a thing is meant to be kept good and private?_

And now she is sounding like Elinor, and she would laugh if she were not watching her husband so closely.

“Does she?”, he asks, and it sounds off hand, as though his mind is still on the books, but she can see the tension in his shoulders, well enough.  _She knows better._  

“Yes, she does.”  She says it with a quiet, somewhat forced laugh.  “I wonder if I shall ever have any peace until I can tell her that I _do,_ in fact, have news.”

And she swears, if he were half the world away, she would still be able to hear his inhale, sharp and ragged as it is.

 _Oh, Colonel._  

He is silent, so silent, and in the face of it she can only—

_She can only—_

“I suppose time will tell.”, she whispers, but she is certain he hears her.

And how strange it is, to wonder at it.  To believe, if only for a few short weeks, in the _possibility._

It could be true—even now.  A tiny part of him, still inside of her, and it is just as she has said.  Only time can tell if it will grow.

And her fingers touch her middle; involuntary and brief.

But he has turned.  He has seen.

_She is terrified.  But oh, she wants it for his sake.  She wants it, because she has learned, these past months, to see straight through him. She knows there is nothing he desires more, and she longs to give him the things he desires._

It will please him so, and cost her _nothing._   After all that he has given her, she can bear his gentleness, his tenderness in their bed, and it will be no trial for her.

After all that he has given her, after how well he has _loved_ her, she can give him a child who will be pure and whole; unwaveringly capable of loving him perfectly in return.

There is something terrible in his eyes. 

He opens his mouth, makes to speak, fails, and then tries again.

“Marianne—I—”

And she urges him on with her heart, because she cannot read his thoughts, no matter how she tries.

He tells her he is in no hurry, and something in her pulseswith the agony of his kindness. 

He tells her not to worry herself for the sake of Mrs. Jennings, and she wonders at how he sides with his wife unreservedly in the face of friends he has known for far longer.

He _longs_ for her, though he does not tell her that bit.  She can still see it though, and it makes her so sad, she wonders that he has not wept with it yet.  It makes her wants to weep _for_ him, because he deserves every single thing he could possibly desire, and fate has been cruel enough to assign  _her_ to see to it that those things are his.

He tells her not to trouble herself, and she is speaking before he has even finished.

“But—do you not _want_ a child?  You hold Little Edward so, and it would be so…”

_It would be so easy for her to give him one, and a few more of her sins against him could be washed away with the blood of her childbed and the tears of their baby._

And he would love it.  He would love their child so well.  That fact has never been far from her mind, and not even once has she questioned it.  It is the only thing that allows her to desire such a result of their relations in the face of her absolute terror at the thought of motherhood.

At the very least, does he not desire to join with her again?  _He had trembled so…_

He looks so helpless now.  Can only shake his head, and she shifts her words from babies to the weather.

_It has been very fine of late._

And she thinks, perhaps, she, for once, has been the one to bare her heart, and frighten _him._

~

That night is different.

He waits for her with his hands gripping the window sash, his back to the door as she enters, and when she turns, she can see a glass of a warmly colored drink she knows to be alcohol clutched in his hand. He…is gazing at the stars?  His shoulders tense, head bowed too low to truly be enjoying the view from the window.  His hands convulse as he hears the door close behind her. 

He almost _never_ drinks, and she wonders at it.

Wonders at it further when, apparently satisfied with the time he has spent deep in thought, he steps toward her.  _So slow._

Step.

Step.

_Step._

He leaves his drink on the table by the fire.

He mutters something she cannot quite make out. 

He is coming toward her, and she turns and makes for the bed, because she does not know what he means to do with her in the middle of the bedchamber, but she would much prefer to have the softness of pillows beneath her and the warm weight of the covers above her.

She stills, her hand bracing on the bedpost, when she feels his fingers at her hip.

Her waist.

_What is he doing?_

He says her name.  Whispers it above her ear.

His lips.

They are at her _jaw._

Her hair. 

It is being wound through his fingers.

His voice. 

It is saying something— _something._

Lovely.  He is saying that she is lovely.  Or perhaps it is that he loves her.

Or maybe he is saying both.

She cannot breathe. 

_It is exactly like the first night, and nothing like it at all._

And then he is gone. 

He is backing away; she turns to look behind her, and there he is, looking stricken.

_He looks as though she has bitten him.  Or as though he has bitten her._

And she does not know what to do about it.

“Will—?”

_Will you come back?_

_Will you come to bed?_

_Will you be inside of me again?_

_Will you let me give you this, this only thing I can?_

But he looks as terrified as he would if she were bleeding her life’s blood out on the floor.

And he is turning.

And he is gone.

And Colonel Brandon’s wife sleeps in their marriage bed alone for the first time since they were wed.

~

He sleeps in his study, and he dreams of… _things._

Nightmares of rain, thunder, _cold._   Yes, he has nightmares too.  Terrors that can match hers, breath for bloody breath.

Sometimes— _most times—_ in his dreams, he does not reach her in time.

And she is dying, dying, and Eliza is dead too, _because he_ _did not reach her in time._  

There are other dreams.  Dreams that are not nightmares.  After he starts awake in the dead of night, whiskey still churning through him, he slips away again and dreams of he wife.

Dreams of her naked and in their bed.

_What would she look like?_

He tries to imagine it; has good and detailed fodder for his fantasies, after he has lain close to her, felt what it is to be within her, if only for a few moments— _old man—_ and stripped her nightdress over her head to replace it with one of his own.

He clings desperately to the memory, even as he has done his damndest to push it away during his waking hours.

_Pale._

_Soft._

_Warm._

Young.

Beautiful.

_Too beautiful for him._

He remembers… _things._  From their night.

Her legs, long, and pale, and stretched out on either side of him.

Her breaths, catching in the air between them. 

Her fingers, tight on his forearms as he held himself above her. 

_God help him, he wants her._

And he has drunk more whiskey than he has since his young days in the army, and look what he has done in the face of it. 

His wife is not a whore, to be made to bear his drunken pawings at her. 

At yet borne them she has, and he knows nothing but regret for it. 

He has waited long; kept himself from her to allow her to heal—both in body and in heart, (for he knows all too well the ache that comes with a love that ended tragically) but it appears his drunken self does not _care_ about her healing, about whether she remembers their limbs tangled together fondly or with a shudder of distaste. 

 _He certainly gave her little enough to be fond of, old man that he showed himself to be._

He is a fool, if nothing else.

He had vowed, after that first night, to wait, and give her time, and to love her with everything he had in him the next time she offered him her arms and warmth

_And now._

And now he will wait all the more.

And with the shame of a man who has treated his beloved wife ill. 

He sighs. 

And when he opens the door to his study with every intent to make himself presentable for the day, the first thing he is met with are her eyes.

_~_

Marianne can _feel_ her heart stop in her chest when she sees the Colonel emerge from his study. 

_They have both of them awoken several hours too early this morning. She does not know what has brought it on in him, but she passed her night tossing and turning with scarcely two hours of sleep together to show for it, constantly ill at ease without his solid warmth beside her._

_How quickly she has grown accustomed to it.  Reliant on him._

And how suddenly he has abandoned her.

 _Strangely._  She still cannot make heads nor tails of the night they have passed, from his alarm and helplessness at the subject of babies, to his… _attentions,_ paid to her before he fled their room.

And now he stands before her, and she has said good morning like a stupid girl reciting lines, and before she can stop herself, before she can think twice about him, or her, or whatever has gone strange and uncertain between them— _for the thousandth time—_ she says “You look _dreadful.”_

And promptly feels herself flushing as a deep a red as she has ever worn, her hand flying to her mouth in shock at her own words.

What has she _said?_

He just stares at her.

She is _mortified._

However, he does, in truth, look as though he has passed his night in less than ideal circumstances.

But he only shakes his head and sighs, running a palm over his sleep-laden face.  “Forgive me. Forgive my _behavior.”,_ he tells her in weary, exhausted tones that speak of a deep and throbbing desire to be anywhere but _here_.  “You have not married a drunkard.” 

_She has never been of the opinion that she has._

But, she knows why he has said it.  Knew it last night, with his hands on her; the most _un_ gentle he has ever been toward her, and yet, she can claim no injury.  Not to her body, and not to her heart.

“Nor have you married a woman made of china.”, she whispers.  _Her voice, it seems, has gone weak and soft these past few days._ “I have not shattered, nor am I likely to at a touch.”

And she stands a little straighter for the rest of the day.

Those words might just be the bravest she has been in…

 _Her entire life._

_~_

_That_ night he does not imbibe, and it leads her to wonder what made him seek refuge in strong drink in the first place.

No matter.  It is just as he said.  She has not married a drunkard, and even in alcohol’s stubborn grip, he had not come remotely close to harming her.

 _She does wonder, though._

He sits in his chair by the fire, and she tries to imagine what he might see as he gazes into it, a book he shows no interest in reading resting in his lap.

_Husband._

She goes to him then, because what is she to do, if not join him there, but she can see that thing, that _something terrible_ in his eyes, and quite suddenly her own chair is the most horrible thing she has ever seen.

She has no idea what possesses her to do it, but she seats herself on the fine rug by his feet, her back warm against his legs, and she can feel his sigh all the way down to his toes.

 _Colonel Brandon._

She does not speak of the weather.  Cannot bear to when there are so many other things they should speak of between them.

She asks him how he slept.

And she feels his muscles tense behind her. 

Poorly, he tells her.  He slept poorly.

_And so did she._

She speaks it, tells him, and his hand—

Comes to stroke her hair, and it is good, and familiar, and _lovely._

And she does not realize it, but she speaks it aloud, and then they have both said it, one to another.

_Lovely._

But they are strangers here.  Two people who have sworn themselves to one another, and yet feel as though they have never met before in this place where it is good and natural for her to hold his body within her own. 

He apologizes again.

_He is sorry.  So very regretful.  He has not touched whiskey since—_

And some tiny part of her smiles.

_Colonel Brandon made rueful and contrite.  For nothing.  Less than nothing.  It makes something delicate and trembling flare to wondrous life between them, and her breath catches sweetly in her throat, pulsing there._

It takes her by surprise, because she has only the vaguest recollection of this thing that is between them.  She remembers it from…

_From a book, passed from his hands to hers, written is looping, flowing French._

_From an accomplice at a wedding.  A hiding place she did not ask for but so desperately needed._

_From kisses in the dark; tears and arms._

From the night he spent within her.  She remembers it from then.

And his hand, it is still stroking her hair, and he is warm behind her while the fire is warm before her.  She feels her eyelids fluttering, and then her head is resting against his knee.

She does not _want_ him to apologize.  Not when he has not done anything more than finally ask of her what he has had every right to expect from his wife since the day they wed. 

So she asks, as gently as she is able and feeling as though her world has suddenly turned upside down as it is now _she_ who is attempting to soothe _him,_ if he is feeling any better tonight than he was before. 

And she can _see_ him flush; a warmth in his face that she is certain does not come from the firelight, and _there,_ she is smiling again.

_More than she has in the past few months combined._

Perhaps it is that having him so close to her—if only for one night—has made him a little less holy and a little _more_ her husband.  Perhaps there is no reason for it at all.  She does not know.  But her smile is stretching all the way down her chest, and she can feel it sticking in her heart. 

_Maybe it is that she has seen him drunk now, and that is something she never imagined she would be privy to._

Maybe it is that her body remembers how he felt inside of her; the stretch, the dull ache, the wet, seeping mess at the end.

She finds that…she does not much care _why_ she is smiling, but very much cares about the way he makes her feel when she does.  He smiles back at her, though she can see the self-depreciation plainly in his eyes, and when he does she feels like he is touching her all over at once.

_Yes, he says.  Yes, he is feeling much better.  And she does not push against what she knows must be a tender bruise for him by demanding to know the cause of the whole ordeal.  She thinks she can guess, well enough._

When he finally rises and makes for the bed, she follows him.  When he lifts the covers, she crawls to her place amongst the pillows without hesitation, and he after her. 

When he sees to the last candle, leaving them in a quiet, warm dark, she breathes deeply enough that her chest rises, and the covers with it, and then he is there, as he always is, his lips at her brow, and she marvels that on their first night—their wedding night—she had dreaded this, and now, after a long night spent apart, it is _right._

She inhales again, deep and close against his throat while his lips are still at her temple, and her hand fits itself against his jaw as he rests there a moment before drawing back. 

_It will please him so and cost her nothing, and she slept so poorly without him last night, she is very nearly longing for it.  Longing for him to hold her close again, because now she knows that after he has been in her, the sleep that comes to him is deep and immovable. If he lays with her tonight, he will not leave her till morning._

And she _wants_ it.  Wants to give it, and wants to know that he will stay close.

_Wants to know that he will take what she offers, because if he will not, then she has nothing—nothing to give him at all._

And that, she thinks, would well and truly break her heart.  _After he has given her so much._

He hums at her curiously as he holds himself above her. Leans into her palm, and she knows it to be the question that it is. 

_“Kiss me.”_

Her brow again, he is there.  And then—

 _“Marianne.”_

And then his lips are tender on hers, and for a sheer, blinding moment she feels as though she will crack in two, it has been so long, and then it is nothing but the sweetest, most delicate warmth.

She must cling too tightly though, or gasp too deeply, because he draws back to soon with a soft grunt and gives her an appraising look.

“Here now, what is this?”, he asks softly into the dark, and _yes,_ she had known this moment would come.  This stalled place where she must explain herself.

So she says please.  She tells him he will not break her.  She says _it will please you so, and cost me nothing._

And he sighs against her cheek; a broken, hollow sound.

 _“Marianne.”_

She tells him he did not harm her, that she does not feel ill-used, and he kisses her temple once more before resting on his side and pulling her against him, small and safe in the curve of his body.

His mouth finds her ear, and at first, she thinks he means it as a kiss, but then his voice finds her in the softest of whispers.

“You need not—” he swallows. “You need not feel _obligated—”_

 _“I do not.”_   

Her hands and his are a tangle over her stomach, her back against his chest, and she feels his fingers clench alongside her own.

 _Courage,_ she thinks.  Courage, because he deserves so much more than he will ever ask of her, so she will be his wife, and she will ask it of _him_ instead.

“Please.”, she asks into her pillow, near enough that she knows he can hear her.  “Please, it—it is something I can give you.  _One_ thing.  You always give me so much, let me give you this.”  And she has come nearer to pleading with him than she ever thought she would.  _“Please._   It did not hurt.  I did not mind.”  She swallows.  _“You were gentle.”_

His arms clutch her tighter.

She is thoroughly flushed from exhausting every brave word she possesses in her effort to convince him, and she would think of this as horridly unfair if she did not know he has suffered through far worse from her in the course of their courtship and marriage.

“You should not feel as though you must give more than you wish.”  And the words are muttered hoarsely against her hair. 

“But I _do_ wish. It costs me _nothing_ at all, and it pleases you so—I _want_ to please you—and… _and…”  Bravery, bravery, bravery._ “And it was not unpleasant.”

She tucks the last words in tight to her shoulder, feeling her lips moving against her hot skin, and _oh,_ has she crossed some invisible boundary between what is right between a man and his wife and what is horribly impulsive and off-putting to a husband?

_No._

Not if his kiss to her hair— _the second, third of the night?—_ and his soft laugh are anything to go by.

 _“Oh, Marianne.”_   She can hear his smile in his whisper-soft murmurs and feels it to her toes.

She thinks he sounds…endeared to her.  Amused in that quiet, comfortable way, and then he is kissing her again, her temple, her face, the very corner of her mouth, and he says, _he says—_

“It can be better.”

 _What?_

Her body pauses, and he rests his cheek against hers.

 _“I_ can be better.”, he says, and she does not know how.  How can he possibly be any better than the man he has been throughout the entirety of their acquaintance?  “It can be more than… _bearable.”_  

He says it oddly, _self-depreciatingly,_ and she says nothing in reply. 

But she does sigh when he kisses her one last time, with a promise to stay, and _well, if she knows anything much at all, an unspoken promise to explain himself another time._  

~

The next night, he does.

Explain himself.

He is waiting for her in their bed, and he gives her his kisses the moment she joins him there.

_Brow._

_Temple._

_Lips._

_Lips again._

_A sigh.  “You are not too tired?”_

_“No.  No, not tired at all.”_

She hardly knows when she would find the _time_ to be tired.  All she does is read and take tea all day.

And this time, when he hums at her, a low, rumbling thing that itches at her ears, there is no question implied. 

Only the sort of comfort that comes from a darkened bed with exceptionally soft pillows.

He kisses her, and this time it is real.  This time he is wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close, and her breath sticks in her chest because _he is going to do it again._  

And she is terrified. 

_I love you._

The words still echo around in her skull, crashing off the edges of the bones, and she _still_ cannot know if they are quite _real._

But she wants him to do… _whatever_ it is he is going to do, is _itching_ for it, because the pain of it, the faint soreness, her arms around him as he trembles—

It is the nearest thing to atonement she has yet found.

_And it is sweet._

And she aches to give him everything he desires, even if he will not ask.

But he…does not does not lay her down and slip himself inside of her as he did before.

His kisses; they just go on and _on,_ until her lips are sore and she is certain they will soon split and bleed, and then he kisses her some more.  Everything soft and lovely.  His nose tucked tight against her own.  A long way into it, many minutes or what feels like an eternity, he suckles her top lip between his two, and she gasps, almost draws back but is stopped when his teeth accidentally catch against her skin, warm in his mouth _._  

 _It can be better,_ he said. 

 _It can be better,_ he whispers against her jaw as he finally relinquishes her sore, tingling lips, _and they miss his touch._

And suddenly she is very afraid that he will break her—not with brute force, but by pulling the shimmering thing between them too tight; stretching it until it snaps them both in two. 

He does not. 

He kisses her again, only this time—

_This time._

This time it is her collarbone, and he is slow, and he is watching, and she thinks she may cry very soon, because this…is not what she had in mind. 

 _Oh God._

He speaks sweet things to her as he goes.  Whispers nonsense about how lovely and beautiful she is; swears love to her against her skin, and yes, she believes him.  She always has. 

She trembles violently when he reaches that place, just between her breasts, that no one has ever touched, and when she whimpers with it, with the _too much_ of it, her tears almost falling because she is so afraid, and so alone, and feels so very, very small, he slips his large hand around her own, and allows her to cling to it as tightly as she will.

_She has never been more grateful for anything, she thinks, in her entire life._

A kiss to the side of one breast.  Then to the bottom of the other.  Her fingers squeeze against his, and then he is hers again, propped above her on one arm, as though he has just given her their usual, chaste kiss goodnight, and she is gasping— _yes,_ she is _crying_ with it—and does not know what to do.

 _How could she have known that it would be like this?  It lacks all of the desperation of the first time, but has gained near twice the storm of emotion._  

He is kind, though.  As ever.  Gentle fingers tuck her hair back from her face, and she blinks away silly tears to stare up at him.

 _Oh._

“Are you well?”, he asks very quietly, and she does not know.  Tells him as much, and he nods as though he knows exactly.

He waits while she gathers herself, and as she struggles, he tells her a story of when he was a boy.  One of the few she has not yet heard before. 

_A sweet story._

_A kind boy._

_He grew into a kind man, who makes his wife laugh as she cries foolish tears in their wedding bed and spends her overwrought emotions all over him until he no longer has faith in her willingness to perform marital intimacies with him._

She does, eventually come back to her senses, and he looks at her with such gentleness that it makes her heart catch, and she answers him in kind, with a story of a horribly impetuous little girl who passed her childhood deep into Sussex.

She delights him, though she will never know why.

He smiles at her soft-spoken words, laughing as though he adores her, and in that moment, she believes he does.  And when they have passed more than an hour and are settled heavily on top of their pillows, he kisses her again, and it is slower, and it is _better._  

Now she knows what to expect.

Now she knows how it should feel.

Now that she is no longer concerned with the strangeness of his lips against hers, she can now begin to concern herself with her lips against his.

He suckles the same lip, and she lets him.  Sighs when he releases the flesh back to its home.

And then she is the one reaching for the next kiss, and he meets her with a bottomless supply of affection that would no doubt frighten her had she not been subjected to it from the moment she agreed to become his wife.

_“Marianne, do you still—?”_

_“Please, please.”_

She still wants to try, and she tells him just that, and he looks at her with an unreadable expression for what could be either seconds or hours, his thumb stroking the same path over and over on her cheek, and she cherishes it.

 _“Slow.”,_ he tells her.  Slowly and gently. 

And she was right.   He breaks her in two. 

A second round of kisses laid neatly across her collarbone.  Then down her sternum.  Then against the soft flesh of her breasts.  The tops, the sides.  The sensitive undersides.

_The peaks._

She gasps and only avoids a whimper because she is choking on her own voice.  It is only— _such a shock.  She has read all of the poems; knows of breasts and beauty. So why is it that the few times her mind has wandered to bearing her husband’s attentions, it has never quite come to this?_

It is more than the first night.  She knows it as his hair brushes against the last of her bared skin before the neckline of her nightdress shields her from both sight and touch. 

She knows it better when he has _licked_ her through the nightdress, painting a thick stripe of warmth from the fleshy underside of her breast, up, over her nipple, and stopping only when he reaches her clavicle, pausing to suckle there.

 _That_ finally forces the whimper, and the release of it feels like a bliss she cannot comprehend.

 _“Oh.”,_ she says, deep in her throat, and he hums it back to her against her skin.

_Oh._

_How is it she has never imagined this?_

After a particularly long and savory _suck,_ her hands tremble at his temples, and he raises himself, returning to her.

_To her mouth._

_He holds an endless supply of kisses for her._

And she is all too willing to bear them.

It…is like a curtain has been pulled.  Like a window has been smashed.  One moment she was Marianne Brandon, and everything was an uncomfortable mess tinged with guilt, and pain, and sorrow. 

Now, she is simply  _Marianne,_ and his touch has chased all of those ugly things away, at least, for a time. 

Her clavicle again, her other breast.  He suckles the underside.  The nipple.  She whimpers again and again.  Eventually she grows fitful at it all, a thrashing, pushing thing living inside her and demanding to be let out, but he soothes her.  His fingers weave through hers, and he whispers _slow,_ against her skin.  _Gentle,_ into the space between her breasts.  _I am here,_ on the inch of flesh directly over her heart. 

And she believes him.

 _So she calms._  

There are more kisses then; her stomach.  Her belly is pulled taught with the effort of not twisting from side to side, everything else stiff from his touch and the impossible challenge of not crying into the night.

He mouths at her naval, and she almost kicks him.

_She never knew that she was ticklish there._

Yet another lesson he has taught her.

Then the skin below her naval, and he tells her hoarsely that she is _soft,_ even through her nightdress _._  She supposes it must be true, though she has felt it for herself seldom enough.  He kisses it and it tenses with unbearable sensitivity though, so she is inclined to believe him.

_Another choked gasp._

And then… _and then._   Then he is at her legs, _at the place between them,_ and instead of touching her there, he is looking up at her with something like a question in his eyes and feeling for the hem of her nightdress.

Drawing it up, up, up, and she has nodded, must have nodded, because he mutters a quiet _thank you_ before focusing his full attention on what not even _she_ has seen before.

He gasps, and for one, wild moment, she thinks something must be wrong.

And then he touches her with the tip of a lone finger, and for an equally flashing, panicking moment, she thinks that everything in her life must suddenly be _right._  

 _Oh God._  

She is not, for once, lost in the rain.

She has been set on fire. 

~

It occurs to her much later, that she set out to achieve this—the fulfillment of their marriage in every way—in an attempt to be selfless for once in her life.

But just now he is touching her, and every thought has utterly fled from her mind. 

One finger.  Just _one finger,_ and he traces the shape of her with it, and she learns herself by his touch. 

She really does cry out when he begins; a quiet little half-thing, loud in the dark but quiet in the space between them, and he gives her the hand that is not currently rending her mind from her skull to clutch within her own once more.

He finds something at the edge of her then, something too sweet, too warm, and she whimpers as he circles it, and he kisses her— _oh God, kisses her right in the crease between her thigh and that place that has never been touched till now—_ and tells her that _it will be alright._

And she has no choice but to believe him, because she cannot even _think_ of stopping him now.

So she bears it, one hand tucked within his larger one, the other twisting itself deep into the sheets, and he goes on petting her with that same, terrible finger, and she weeps with it. 

_It is unbearable._

He does not stop.

She cannot ask him to.

And then everything changes.

Something in her belly falls clean out of her, floating up somewhere she knows she will never find it again.  Something inside of her, too deep to ever be known before now, _cramps_ until it is squeezing her like a vice.

And her pulse begins to beat in the strangely slick flesh beneath his ever-devoted finger.

_“No, no stop!  I’m going to shatter!”_

And she _sobs_ when he obeys her.  _Oh God,_ but she feels sick with it.  She is burning up with a fever worse than any she has ever known, and _please, please, there has to be a way to make it stop._

He shushes her then, and gathers her up into his arms. His kiss to the top of her hair makes her melt into him, and—

_Oh God._

And then his finger is back _there,_ and now it is so much worse. 

_“But—”_

Her words log down in her throat, because he is _pushing._   Pushing, like he did when he joined their bodies nights before, only now it is with a finger, and it slips inside much more easily because his finger is smaller and she is no longer a so immovable after having bled the first time, and _oh,_ but it—

_Actually helps._

The burning is…better now.  More warm than hot now that she has a fullness to contend with also, and his two fingers, the one within and the one petting the outer flesh, they are the center of her whole world.

He holds her close to his chest and whispers that he loves her, that she is beautiful and that she is safe, is _so safe,_ will always be safe, and she is going to shatter but she would rather do that than tell him to stop, and then— 

She beats at his chest with one tiny fist when the heat finally takes her.  Clutches his nightshirt in her fingers and weeps into him as one of his hands strokes her hair and the other soothes the place between her legs where her pulse threatens to beat right out of her flesh.

Long moments of nothing but deep breaths are required before she can think properly, and the first thing that comes to mind is that nothing has ever felt so selfish in her entire life, and yet nothing has ever been quite so good.

And she shudders, and he casts his voice low and soothes her, brushing her sweaty hair from her brow, and when one final spasm comes over her, his finger is still inside of her to stroke _that_ flesh also, and she whimpers when he finally pulls it out.

 _“Oh.”,_ she finally croaks after what feels like her entire lifespan has passed, and she tilts her face upward to look at him, both awestruck and tremulous as she finds his face. 

And he is gazing so intently at her, nothing like a smile on his face, but an _aliveness_ that she has no proper words for, and there is a tear on his cheek.  And her hand reaches up, and her thumb trembles as she brushes it away.

She wants to ask him how. 

She does not want to know. 

So she nestles into him instead, and for a while, he does nothing but hold her.

~

She must drift off for a little while, because eventually she wakes, and it is still dark as pitch out.

She snuffles and pushes herself closer to his warmth.

And his breath catches.

_Oh._

His arms, they tighten around her for the smallest fraction of a moment before they loosen again and stroke her spine.  She is awash in sensation and has been since she came to bed, and it is _wonderful,_ the finest luxury she thinks can exist in the world. 

And he is restless beside her.

And she remembers.

The trembling pleasure has belonged to _her_ this night.  He has given it to her. 

But she started all of this— _agreed to marry him—_ to provide for his pleasure instead.

And she says as much, though not in those precise words.

He grunts as she fidgets against him, her elbows accidentally finding his ribs or his belly more than once, but eventually she is settled comfortably on her back, and he is peering down at her, bleary-eyed, and she is waiting for him to see and understand.

Her name is a long, slow slide when he does, a fitful exhale, and something curls within her to hear it.

He shakes his head, begins to protest, tells her that it is so late, it is early, but she spreads her legs, and he moves to draw her nightdress down, and—

_Oh, yes, she forgot about the strange slick.  She is still wet there, a little mortified, about to apologize for the mess and offer to clean herself for him, and then he grunts, moans quietly at the feel of it, and his protests die in his throat._

It is slow, and it is warm, and she feels stretched, and bordering uncomfortable, but mostly quite full.  His hands go to her breasts then, and for a moment she thinks he intends to kiss them again and wonders if she will be able to bear any more of it, but instead he goes to the buttons at the neckline of her nightdress, and one, two, three,  _all of them_ are fast undone, and she feels so bare as he peels them back and leaves that part of her naked before him.  But he is inside of her and it is much too dark for her to make too much of a fuss about it, so she says nothing and allows him whatever he wishes.  And as they go on, with his hands on her softly and their bodies joined and sweating, she does not mind it so very much.

And at the end, when he presses her name tight against her temple and accidentally lowers his full weight onto her small frame for a long stretch of moments; when he pulls himself out of her and there is well and truly a mess between her thighs, he pulls her very close, and whispers that he loves her, and she—

_Whispers it back.  Decides, tenuously, that perhaps if she says it enough, she will convince herself of its truth._

And they sleep, all through the night.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a comment to let me know what you think!
> 
> (Also...I'm a little self-conscious about this chapter...idk why. I might edit it heavily along the line, who knows. In all seriousness, what did you guys think???)


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, sorry about the wait--life happened in a big way.
> 
> Anyway, here's another piece of our story, and I really hope you guys like it. 
> 
> Don't forget to let me know what you think!

Marianne Brandon sleeps later than she ever has before.

When she wakes, it is to a belly that is growling its discontent and a room that is flooded with something that looks suspiciously like midday sun. 

And her husband, dressed, pen in hand and papers spread before him in his chair by the hearth.  She can see his profile from the bed, and she must swallow against a curious thickness in her throat to see him there, stubbornly by her side, always.  Watching over her while she wastes the day away in more sleep than she has ever needed before.

“What time is it?”, she croaks in a voice that sounds as though it has not been used in years.  Colonel Brandon starts a little, looks quickly up, and the focus his face has been cast into gentles at the sight of her peering out at him from beneath the bedcovers.

“It is no matter.”, he tells her.  “You needed to sleep.”

_Oh. It must be very late if he will not tell her._

She can feel the heat mounting into her face. 

But there is nothing for it now.  She squeezes her eyelids together so hard, she sees little lights behind them, then stretches in a way that was quite impossible in her little bed at the cottage.

And immediately finds herself frozen as she feels the heavy bedcovers sliding against skin that is most assuredly naked.

_Oh God._

Yes, _yes,_ she remembers.  Remembers him pushing her nightdress up far enough to touch her, to be _in_ her.  Remembers him unbuttoning the neckline as he moved inside of her.  It seems has passed the long night twisting and turning, because now the poor nightdress is hopelessly crumpled into a tight cord around her waist, covering nothing at all but a strip of skin only inches wide.

And he is still looking at her. 

His eyes are on her, a small smile teasing the corners of his expression, and she glances down to see that her chest is almost entirely bared, flushed a vibrant red to be caught bare in her husband’s bed.

She pulls the covers higher.

Stares fixedly at the ceiling above her, a pretty gold in the bright sun, and asks in as steady a voice as she can manage “Could—could you fetch me a nightdress, or a dressing gown, or—”

And he is there. 

He has risen before she even began to speak, and now he is at her side with neither a nightdress nor her dressing gown, but—

His _own_ dressing gown.

Oh.  And quite suddenly, without any warning, her eyes are stinging.

 _Foolish girl._

It…it is not the dressing gown.  It is everything that has led up _to_ the dressing gown.  The…the night before, and the night before that, and everything that has passed between them.  His touch and the… _things_ it has wrought from her unsuspecting body.  Having him inside of her, knowing it should hurt, knowing it should pain her more than it did, but finding nothing in him but unending patience and a dedication to her comfort and happiness.

And now a dressing gown— _his_ dressing gown—because all of her clothing is across the hall, and she does not wish to be left naked.

She bats her eyes furiously against the wetness that has gathered there and clutches the covers to her chest as she rises to sit, reaching out to take the thing from him as something in her tightens and then releases at the feel of its heavy softness under her fingers.  It makes the tense knot in her belly tender, and when she meets his eyes and thanks him quietly, she means it. 

He turns from her and takes up his papers once more, and she takes advantage of the long moments his back is turned to her to free herself from the tangle of her nightdress and robe herself in the dressing gown that smells overwhelmingly of him.  She presses the collar of it to her nose and breathes deeply, thinking of mint leaves and some rich smell found out of doors.  Earthen.  She cinches the sash tightly around her waist, sighing when she sees that it will only cover so much, the deep neckline of it cutting low into her chest and leaving a great swatch of skin bare.

_But, she supposes, he has seen it all before, in the dim light of their bed late at night, his body pressed closer to hers than she has ever been to anyone in all her life._

She must endeavor to feel no shame, she thinks stubbornly.  Not for her skin, not before him, _not anymore._

Not when he himself has seen to it being bared before him.  She has read what must be nearly every love poem in the world, and they tell her that bare skin and bodies pressed close to one another are to be _expected_ within the realm of physical passion. 

_It is only…somehow, when she married him, she never foresaw herself in such a situation with Colonel Brandon, who has ever been calm, and dignified, and unfailingly, quietly polite._

She supposes she must cure herself of that oversight now. 

So she braces herself against any sort of foolish shyness that she might feel even now, after naked skin and joined bodies and whispers of love passed between them, and walks to join him, kneeling at the arm of his chair. 

 _No soreness.  Not anymore._

“Good morning,” she whispers as she peers at the mess of papers before him, her flushed cheeks slowly cooling, voice steadying as her surprise at the lateness of the hour and her naked state begins to fade.

_There is no ridicule in him, so she fights viciously against the notion of embarrassment in herself_

He turns to her, shuffles papers, and in the end deposits them on the floor, and shifts in his seat to make room for her. Perhaps she would hesitate if they had not done this before.  She would most certainly refuse if she did not know very well that he has seen her in a far worse state than in a dressing gown on his lap.  Surely that is preferable to dying in the rain?

So she goes to him, perches herself above him and allows him to arrange his hands wherever he likes—around her waist—before settling herself on top of him.

A kiss against her temple.  He always seems to take such pleasure from that smallest affection, humming against her skin and lingering there at her hairline a moment before replying a “Good morning, wife,” of his own.  He has to gather her hair back from her face to see her expression, long and tangled as it is for her failure to braid it the night before, but he does not seem to mind.

“What are those?”, she asks, gesturing to his neglected papers, and he describes in brief detail the workings of his tenants; the leases and properties that accompany the Delaford estate.  She supposes Edward and Elinor’s parsonage must be among those documents, but she does not question him about it.  She does not do much of anything save concentrate on his arms around her and the smell of him completely surrounding her.  When they neither one of them say anything more, she leans over, his arms tight around her to keep her from falling, and she fetches the papers, along with his pen and ink from the floor.  She blows lightly on the most recently written on page, then sets about the task of arranging everything—the papers and thick ledge in her lap, the pen in her hand, the well of ink nestled tightly between his middle and her side.  His hands are full of her, palms pressed against her waist, but hers are free to turn the heavy pages of the ledger, examining his spiky handwriting and reading the details of an estate she should surely be better acquainted with than she is now.  When she reaches the end of his work and the beginning of the work yet to be done, she glances up at him and asks what ought to be written, and where.

And he teaches her.

Tells her of family after family, leases and houses, an entire village that owes patronage to him.  Her own handwriting looks nothing at all like his, more loops than spikes, and curious-looking as it forms numbers and payments and documentations of repairs.  She smiles when they reach ‘Ferrars’ in the book, and she takes extra care while writing out each detail concerning the little family that is so dear to them both. 

It is, perhaps, not the wisest of places to conduct one’s business—in an armchair before the fireplace.  There is the looming concern of her elbows against his ribs, and by the end of it all she has an immovable ink stain at the heel of her hand, but she thinks it is generally a pleasant way to pass an hour or two, her husband’s voice in her ear, every detail of his estate spread before her to examine at leisure.

Colonel Brandon, and here are the intricacies of his life, just here, in this book.

_And in another.  A book of sonnets with his name and another’s inscribed inside its cover._

So she holds him in her hands, pages and pages of him, a pen to dictate his days, all his trust given to her as she writes what he tells her, and he toys with her hair as they complete his work together.

And for a wonderful, quiet, almost _drowsy_ morning, she is nothing at all, save content.

~

They take a late lunch, her face flushing a warm pink to know that the afternoon is well underway by the time they sit down to eat. 

They dine largely in silence, though an amiable one, and then the Colonel retires to his study while Marianne finds herself among his budding roses in the garden.  He cares so devotedly for the flowers; they have been beautiful every year she has seen them, though this is the first spring she has been mistress over the house they belong to.  She passes a long, sweet hour among the bushes, then returns inside when clouds gather. 

Delaford is so different, so _separate_ from her life at the cottage with her mother and sisters.  There are no chores to tend to; no money to stretch and stretch for weeks on end. She must search for activities to occupy her days now, and she is met with varying degrees of success depending on the day.  This day, or evening, rather, as most of the day passed in their bedchamber, she feels something near to lost, casting around for an occupation and finding hardly anything to keep her interest. 

The piano, the books, a never-ending supply of tea. She is afraid she will soon grow bored of all of them.  Her husband’s household has been established for so long without a mistress, there seems to be no place for her in the working of things now. 

So she _makes_ something for herself to do.  The Colonel’s books are never in any particular order—or perhaps they are, and she has simply failed to decipher it—so she empties a portion of the shelves and sets out to pair Donne with Donne, Byron with Byron, Shakespeare with Shakespeare, and soon there are stacks of tomes all around her, and she holds several in her arms, and his shelves have transformed into some unrecognizable state. 

His eyebrow rises when he enters the room, and she laughs a little at the sight—his widening eyes as he sees the mess she has made.

“I am afraid you will have to make some allowances for your wife, Colonel.  When I have no occupation, I am given to finding one for myself, whether it exists or not.” 

And he smiles at her. 

“Just so.” 

He helps her, reading spines and passing volumes, and they have not finished before the evening grows late, but they have, at the very least, cleared up the piles she made on the floor.

“Have I upended some long-standing and beloved system?”, she asks, laughing at herself. 

And he shakes his head, tells her that she never could, and they both know it to be a blatant falsehood.  She has upended  _everything_ long-standing about him since the day they met, though she did not realize it until…she cannot say when.

But then she is yawning, covering her mouth in vain, because he can, of course, see it, and she knows it is time to retire to bed.

_And she is not afraid._

Is not nervous, regretful, filled with dread. Does not begrudge the idea of being with him again.

It…is as easy and as comfortable as being read to by him, or held, or kissed, and she wonders at it.  _How strange, that what was once so impossible should now be so very simple._

Although her whole body seems to flush as her mind strays to the torrent of feeling he poured on her the night before. 

 _Good God._

She could be afraid of that;would be afraid of it, except that he took care to hold her through it and never once let her go.  And she cannot be afraid of anything given to her by him, because he carried her in the rain, and she knows nothing that comes from him can ever be intended to harm. 

So she climbs the stairs and fetches a nightdress from the bedchamber she never uses as he goes to the one they share to don a nightshirt of his own.  As the linen falls cool over her shoulders, she stretches from wrists to ankles and finds she is not at all sore, though they were together only last night.  She supposes…supposes that a maidenhead and blood are only spent once, and that everything after must be easier.

And then she is there; crossing the hall, through the door, seeing the warmth of the fire and her husband by it.  Fetching her brush and running it through the mess that is her hair in efficient strokes that sting a little, and she huffs. 

He turns and looks to her at the sound, and she sighs. “It will be a disaster, come summer. The heat will make it go _everywhere.”_

And he _laughs_ at her.  Says that it will only be lovely, and she—

Well, she finds him quite charming as he does it. Her husband is not a man who often laughs, but she finds that after everything, she is not unhappy to hear the sound of it. 

And she laughs with him. 

_Colonel Brandon, and how is it that after everything, she is standing here?_

He reads.  A little to himself, a little out loud, to her, making a place for himself beneath the covers and readying her pillows for her. 

By the time she is through with her hair, she is almost certain that tonight they will be together again. 

 _He is slipping love poems between tragedies and treatises on the beauty of the ocean._

He throws back the covers for her, offers her his hand as she crawls beneath them, and it is so easy.  Simpler than it has ever been before.  She blows her candle out, then he his, and then his lips are finding her temple in the dark.

Her shoulder.

The nape of her neck.

She sighs, and the exhale shakes as though she trembles. 

His hand is warm on the small of her back, his other by her side, so she lowers herself to the pillows and curls her fingers through his.

~ 

The following days—then weeks—are much the same.

Quiet, easy hours.  Warm, gentle nights.  She grows accustomed to his lips on parts of her body that have been previously untouched. Used to his hands and his body above her.

She does not think the sounds he makes—the long, drawn moans and soft grunts—will ever become common to her though, and nor will the shattering sensation she is met with at the culmination of his attentions to her.

She still trembles, but she does not withdraw. 

He still hesitates, still asks permission, but he does not question what she has given.

And it is good.  She knows it is good.  It chips away at the remaining layers of fear, and guilt, and uncertainty between them, and it goes a little way toward soothing whatever it is that she knows has haunted his eyes ever since he carried her home in the rain.

As summer comes, they visit Barton park often, Cleveland once, and the Colonel spends many long days afield, hunting.  Marianne remains behind with Elinor, tending little Edward and laughing at Margaret’s insistence that she is not yet a lady, and the warm, sunny days are quite pleasant to all involved. 

~

He teaches her.

Once her spine has ceased its stiffening at his touch, his skin no longer a shock against hers, he begins to show her just what his touch and hers can do.

 _He undresses her._  

The first time— _oh God, the first time—_ he is soft, and gentle, and kisses her for a very long time before he unbuttons the collar of her nightdress.

She gasps.  But he has done it before; has done it in the dark while moving inside of her, and it is not new, even if it is strange. 

But he does not stop there, and he is resting his temple against hers on their shared pillow as he reaches down to where the linen has gathered at her knees, and he whispers a quiet please against her ear.

_Marianne._

She clutches at his nightshirt.  _Oh God._

She stutters, gasps again, pushes at him until he lifts himself on his forearms to look her in the eyes.

He has seen her bare before; as naked as the day she was born, but—

_But not like this.  Not in bed together, about to—about to—_

She knows, _knows,_ that were she removed from the situation and watching as a bystander, she would shake herself silly, because she _knows_ she is being foolish. It is _she_ who has read nearly every love poem in the world.  _She_ who so often lectured Elinor about her coldness and dispassion.  And now she is here, in her marriage bed with a husband who has never been anything but gentle and loving to her, and yet panic is rising up all around her. 

 _Dear God._

And he knows it.  _Of course, he does.  He is Colonel Brandon, and he always knows._

He slows, almost stills, save for the thumb that is tracing patterns on her side, and they lie side by side for many moments, catching their breath as she awaits whatever words he will soon have for her. No doubt, they will be words of comfort, and she will flush with embarrassment to hear them.  She should be able to do this; _should_ be able to give him whatever he desires. 

But she cannot.

_She can._

_She can._

_She can._

She whispers it to herself in her mind, wills herself to believe it. 

 _She can._

The thumb on her side turns into a palm, and she flushes to feel it. 

_She cannot._

“Marianne.”

And she squeezes her eyes shut, because her husband can say so very much with no words at all, save for her name. 

He is saying that all is well.  That it is alright, and there is nothing to forgive, and he is sorry for asking too much.  He is saying that he will not do it again, and that she is so very free to curl into his side and instruct him to simply hold her while she sleeps.

And she does—flush with embarrassment, that is.

She does not know if she can, but she _wants_ to do this.  Wants to do this for him, and wants to prove to herself that she can. 

“Help me.”, she says, and she ignores him when he tells her that she does not have to; that she need not.

Instead, she pushes the covers back, because she can hardly do anything with their weight atop her.  Then she unfastens the last button that he missed, and then she is wriggling, attempting to free her arms from their confines of linen.

And he _helps_ her, all while being careful not to touch her and saying that it does not matter, that he does not mind—

And then he is not saying anything at all, because she is bare and hurriedly returning to her place beneath the covers, and he is with her.

And before he can reach for her, she reaches for him and takes his hand in hers as she has on countless nights before, a small, warm comfort that does little in the way of cooling the red of her skin, but much in the way of easing her breaths and soothing her heart. 

“I—” she swallows.  “I am sorry, it is only, no one—”

 _No one has seen her so completely bare, well, ever._  

Elinor is so modest, was so even when they shared a room, and no one else ever had the chance. 

And he seems to understand, though she finds she cannot finish.  He returns to her, drapes himself back over her, and he is like a thick, heavy cover over her, keeping her warm now that she is so very bare.

She squeezes her eyes as tightly shut as they will go.  Her heart is beating so hard, she can feel it in her throat.  

 _Oh God, everything is…so very present against her._

She can feel the coolness of the bedlinens, the heat of the Colonel above her, the slide— _oh God—_ of his bare legs against her own. 

It all makes her head spin. 

He tells her to breathe, whispers it in her ear, and she realizes that she has forgotten to do so and inhales very deeply.

He kisses her temple and murmurs “Good girl.”

She whimpers.  And her eyes fly open then, embarrassed by the sound.  She bites her lip and wills her heart to slow, her blush to fade.  Wills everything about her to calm, because she cannot bear this much longer.

She manages to piece together a few, incoherent words— _she, who is never short for anything to say—_ and they come out as _please—I cannot—it feels—please._

And somehow, he makes sense of what she cannot.

He makes sense of the overwhelming impossibility of what her bare skin is capable of feeling, and she did not know, _has never known—_

And she must say it out loud, though she does not mean to, because then he is shushing her gently and saying sweet things like _I know,_ and _hush now,_ and _brave girl,_ and for long moments it seems as though his voice is the only thing keeping all of her in one piece.

And then he pulls the covers up very high around them, so that they are blanketing his shoulders, and he fidgets a bit while she waits and wonders what he will do, the dark thick around them and keeping her sight from her.

A loud gasp cracks the night open when he has accomplished his task and returns to her, because— _oh God, oh God, Mama, Elinor, they cannot have known about this, because they would have told her.  They would have.  She can scarcely believe it—_ the sensation, the bare skin of his chest against her own, it sets her mind on fire with color.

How has she not known?

How has she gone so many years, wanting so much to be in love with a fierce, wild abandon, and yet been unaware of what something as simple as bare skin against bare skin can feel like?

It is… _magic._  Heat, and soft, and tingling, and _alive._   And she does not know what to do with herself because there is no part of her mind that is not currently fixated on the rough of him against the smooth of her. 

She thinks…she thinks she cries.  Weeps foolish, stupid tears, because arms are around her and suddenly the Colonel is on his back and she draped over top of him while she struggles to only breathe.

_He loves her.  She knows it. Has known it for far too long and has suffered for it, and denied it, and hated him for it, and hated herself for not being able to return it.  And now they are here, and there is nothing left between them, not even linen, and she…at the very least, is closer to him than she has ever been to another living soul in all her life._

If that is not some kind of love, the trust, and the safety, and the warmth they share, she thinks she will never, no matter how hard she tries, know what is. 

And she collects herself; assures her husband that it is not being bare that has made her come apart so, and then kisses him like part of her wishes she had months ago. 

This, she thinks, is what the poems call making love.

~ 

 _Sometimes he wants nothing more than to watch her._  

_She is beautiful, and young, and a curious combination of boldness and timidity, and on occasion, he thinks that to sketch the curve of her spine would be the challenge of his life._

_He would never be able to do it justice._

_And then he shakes his head at himself for such foolishness and settles upon kissing her instead of imagining her as cold artwork, because what use has for sketches when she sleeps in his bed and allows him to hold her in his arms?_

_She likes his touch.  Sighs delicately when he traces a finger down the bumps of her spine.  Takes great fistfuls of the sheet in her small hands when he curves his palm over her soft belly._

_Gasps when they rest flush to one another, and he can only kiss her and whisper every paltry compliment that comes to his mind._

_She has always been the one with the gift for poetry; he the one who wears the pages of books thin searching for sentiments that he cannot speak in his own words._

_She is something like starved for touch, he thinks as she melts and turns boneless against him, panting as he holds her close and spends all of his focus and all of his strength of pleasuring her; on coaxing tearful cries from deep within her chest._

_Marianne—she weeps.  She weeps when she is angry, and he aches to soothe her.  She weeps when she is full of sorrow, and he wants nothing more than to bear it for her._

_She weeps when the pleasure takes her, and he loves her for the way she trembles, then blushes with it, peering at him out of first one eye, then two, as though afraid he will one day find fault with her enjoyment of their marriage bed._

_It is the only truly foolish notion that has ever gone through her head._

_So he touches her often, and seeks to be nothing but generous with hands and lips and anything at all she desires.  He holds her close and bares himself as she allows him to bare her, and she traces the scar that she once helped to treat while he thinks that she could have married any one of the many, many handsome, lively, younger men who would have no doubt begged for her hand in time, but here she is, the single greatest beauty he has ever seen, and she is his wife._

_He is a fool to think to keep her._

_He will forsake wisdom in favor of his own folly for as long as he possibly can._

_~_

Her blood comes.

And she thinks it strange, but does not know why—it is only natural that it should come.  It has been less than a month since her husband _truly_ took her to wife, so why should she not bleed?

But a part of her—albeit a very small part—had simultaneously hoped and been terrified that she would not.

_She so wants to give him a child.  She wants to be able to provide that for him; that last longing he has. It would please him so._

But it is not to be; not this month.  So she bundles herself up, and her husband holds her very sweetly as they sleep, while her stomach writhes in the discomfort of a woman’s curse.

And then it is over, and they are husband and wife once more.

Mrs. Jennings still asks at least once a week if Marianne is absolutely certainshe has no news to share, and although sometimes Marianne wishes to snap that it is too soon, that of course,she has no news to share; it has, after all, only been a matter of weeks, she must always force herself to remember that no, it has not.  It has been months, and months, and a year, very nearly.

Her husband, with the patience of a saint.

So she manages to smile, and to tell Mrs. Jennings that yes, in fact, she does have news.  To tell her that the Colonel has expanded his rose garden, and that the blooms are just _breathtaking._

And enjoys the slightly crestfallen expression that always finds the elderly woman’s face as she agrees that of course, the Colonel has always possessed ever such a green thumb.

Regardless, other than the fact that she finds her sleep perhaps an hour later each night than before, her life— _their lives—_ remains thoroughly unchanged.

They do, perhaps, both smile a little easier at one another now.  There is less dancing about one another, their words are much easier to coax from mouths that were once each so cautious in the other’s presence. 

It is…pleasant.  Easy.  Somehow both more and less than she thought it would be. 

Less altering.  Life upsetting.

More soothing.  A greater feeling of comfort; of safety.

In its own way, it is quite lovely. 

So when she shelves her book for the night, his hand is next to hers on the shelf, returning his own volume to its home.

And they are comfortable. 

Still as they walk up the stairs, as she peels her corset from her red-streaked middle and he unlaces his boots by the fire, they can hear each other, and they think almost nothing of it at all.

She no longer finds it strange to see him already in their bed, waiting for her, and when he throws back the blankets and opens his arms to her, she is quite expecting it.

She still must swallow hard when he extinguishes the last candle and finds the hem of her nightdress with his fingers.  She knows the pleasure of this now, knows that any sort of shame serves neither of them here, but years and years of constantly ingrained modesty will not be so easily shaken, and so she still blushes and trembles, and he still whispers against her hair that she is beautiful.

When they are through, she on her back, he panting at her side with his arm draped over her belly, they rest against each other for a moment.  Then he is rising, finding a cloth, cleaning her while she squeezes her eyes shut and tries so very hard to pretend that Colonel Brandon is not staring intently at the flesh hidden between her legs, and their night ends with him threading her arms through the nightdress that was so quickly discarded before, but that will give her comfort and allow her to sleep in his arms throughout the night. 

He kisses her brow.  Whispers _goodnight wife._

And then they sleep.

~

Her blood comes.

It gives her pause, just for a hairsbreadth, to see it. And then she shakes her head, telling herself once more that she has only been a true wife, wedded and bedded, for a few, short weeks.  Of course,she bleeds. 

The more pressing concern is Mrs. Jennings’ sudden and persistent desire to hold a _ball._

Marianne is horrified when the woman brings up the subject during tea at Barton Park, and even more so when the invitation comes to Delaford’s front door.

_Good God, suffering the woman the duration of tea is difficult enough.  But long enough for a whole ball to pass? Impossible._

And then there is, of course, the utterly vivid memory of the last ball Marianne attended.

She is in no hurry to try her hand at another one.

But what Mrs. Jennings wants, it seems, Mrs. Jennings will have.  The Colonel sees the look on her face at the prospect—he must—because he plucks the garish invitation from her hands and tells her that they need not stay the whole night.  He is quite middle-aged, after all.

And she shakes her head and tells him not to speak nonsense.  Flannel waistcoat or no, she cannot now believe that she ever thought him _old._

Thought, she supposes, he is, rather.

She has just forgotten to notice it, these many months they have been wed. 

So they attend the ball, and Edward and Elinor attend also, and Marianne finds solace in her sister, who looks as lovely as ever after the long recovery from the birth of her child.

Marianne wonders if she too, will require so much rest and so much time after _she_ gives birth. 

She can still remember the pain her sister had writhed with, and something inside her winces at the thought.

_Though she has known pain, has known an impossibly long recovery, and has lived to tell the tale._

She wonders…she wonders, quite guiltily, if Edward and Elinor’s marriage bed is at all similar to her own with the Colonel. The thought of little Edward has her thinking of how the boy must have been made, and quite unexpectedly she wonders if Elinor likes the feel of her husband’s skin against her own as much as Marianne enjoys the Colonel’s.

Do…do they do it bare, also?  Or does the parson take his wife with his nightshirt and her nightdress between them, just as Adam and Eve clothed themselves before God?

Does Elinor nearly break every time?  Does she clutch at her husband for fear of somehow floating away?

Marianne must bite very hard on her lips to quiet her thoughts, and blames the blush on the heat of the room when Elinor asks.

_Foolish thoughts._

And she kisses her sister farewell and leaves to find her husband.

The share exactly one dance, and it is only at the insistence of Mrs. Jennings.  He smiles so ruefully at her, and she blushes like a girl at her first ball, dancing with the first man who has asked her.  She listens as he apologizes for not being a livelier companion—keener on dancing, presumably—as they weave their way to and fro in the lines of people making their way across the room in patterns according to the tune that plays.

She tells him she has no great love for dancing, and when she thinks on it, she finds it to be quite true.  Her great loves have turned on her, morphing into entirely new pursuits like reading beside her husband before the fire, or taking gentle strolls over Delaford’s hills with her.  She now knows more duets than she thinks she ever knew solos, and marking little numbers on ledgers has become a part of her daily routine, so long as her husband is beside her.

Things have quieted in her day to day, it seems.

How…surprising. 

They ride home in silence that night, the music of the ballroom at Barton Park still swaying merrily along, and they are put to bed long before the revelry ends.

It is better that way, she thinks.  Better to be warm, and safe, and loved here, in the quiet, than to be wooed and in turn, jilted in the brightly lit music.

~

Her blood comes. 

And then it comes again.

And then _again._

The summer slips by, and then farmers are afield, bringing in the harvest.

While Marianne stares at yet another soiled cloth and _aches._

It…it seemed Elinor was so soon growing with child after her marriage.  It had looked so easy.  As simple as going to bed with her husband.

_For Elinor, perhaps._

And for the first time, she allows herself to wonder if something might be wrong.

~

It comes again, her blood, and as first September, then October passes, something shrivels inside of her to think that the Colonel has been a year married without even the hint of a child to show for it.

Is that not a large portion of the _point_ of being married?  At least, when it comes to men who are the masters of great estates.

Before October has passed, she wakes in the middle of the night with a burning middle and hot slick between her legs, and she knows what has happened.

_It does not usually catch her while she sleeps._

Nevertheless, she rises, fetches cloths and a new nightdress, but looking down at her husband upon her return, seeing him fast asleep, she cannot force herself to return to the comfort of his arms.

So she perches on the edge of the bed, her knees drawn up tight against her breasts, and she thinks.

_The blood on her thighs…it should not be.  It has been half a year; more than long enough for a child to be growing in her.  She is young, healthy, by all accounts.  The doctor himself has assured her of it.  There is nothing wrong with her._

_Or is there?_

She cannot help but think of it, and it catches her by surprise.

 _Fevers can do strange things to people.  Is it possible…?_

Her throat is so thick, she cannot swallow.

 _It cannot be._  

And then he is there, and she does not want him to be.

_How many times has that been the case?  She has ever pushed him away, since the day they met, till the day he carried her home in the rain, and onward.  She has despised him for having the misfortune of loving her._

She remembers wanting to flinch away from him the first time he visited the cottage after she was once more well.

Thinks of it as he murmurs something restless in his sleep-fogged state, then sees her and rises, joining her with his bare feet on the floor and his hand at her hunched back. 

_“Marianne?”_

She stares at his toes.

He asks if she dreamt.  She shakes her head.

He asks if she is cold, she tells him no.

He asks what she is thinking of, and she replies “Shakespeare.” 

Because it is the truth.

And he frowns.

“In the middle of the night?”

And she tells him. 

“The first time you visited the cottage after I was ill—you remember?—there was a book wedged under the settee, and I wanted to _die._ ”

 _Oh, even the memory pains her._

“It was his,” she tells him.  “His, from Allenham, and I wanted you to go away and never come back because I was so afraid you would _see,_ after everything, and I could not bear it.  I sent it with Margaret after you left, and she tore the pages out to make paper ships down by the stream.”

His hand is still on her back, and she wishes he would move it.  It feels as though the heat of him is burning a handprint-shaped mark into her linen-covered skin.

“It was his copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets,” she tells him at last; whispers it.  Wants to die, even now, because she has seen _the Colonel’s_ copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets, and he is far more devoted to the beauty of them than Willoughby ever could be.

_And she used to abuse him to her mother and sisters for being unromantic to the point of despair._

His chin is resting on the crown of her head.

“An odd thing to be thinking in the dead of night,” he finally murmurs, as though he can think of nothing else to say, and she cannot help but agree.

Of course, she would be fast asleep and unperturbed if not for the blood between her thighs.

She tells him that too.  Has long since learned that shame is particularly _un_ helpful in such situations, as denying him whatever her body can offer him—though he never questions her wishes and becomes docile beside her the moment she tells him to stop—is infinitely worse than entrusting him with something as intimate as her time. 

“I have my blood,” she tells him simply, and he hums in sympathy, his warm hand beginning to stroke the small of her back in soothing circles, trying to ease her discomfort.

_She tries to imagine Fanny telling John the same.  Tries to imagine John having anything but disgust for the situation, and finds that she cannot.  Colonel Brandon is too good.  And she will never, it seems, be able to repay him._

Because she was once a romantic, but is not anymore, and now she wonders what good her love will do—timid, frightened thing that it is—if she can give him nothing to show for it.

He tells her to lie back, tells her to let him fetch her whatever she needs—water, a cool cloth for her brow—and that then he will hold her, and she wants to _bite_ something; to hit something, and it frightens her.

“I am sorry,” she manages to force through stiffened lips before he says anything else so sweet, and his stroking slows. 

The words sound hollow, even to her own ears.

And he looks confused.

“What are you sorry for?”, he asks her very quietly, and she can tell by the pitch of his voice that he is trying to lull her back to bed; back to sleep.

And she can only stare at him incredulously.

“It has been months.  _Months,_ and even Mrs. Jennings has stopped asking me if I have any news for her.  Now she only stares at me and clucks in pity.  She, and Sir John, and my mother—and _everyone else—_ they all think I am barren.”  She swallows back against tears that will serve her ill now. He is trying so hard, she knows, to calm her and ease her aches.  He always does.  She can still remember how he chafed her in the rain to keep her warm.  He is doing the same now, only this time he will try to do it with words; words to keep her fears and guilt at bay.  “It has been _months.”,_ she reminds him.  “Even I have begun to wonder.” 

And the last part is only a whisper, because it is the first time she has ever spoken her worry aloud, and the sound of it hangs so heavy over her, like the promise of a chilling downpour.

He says something low and chiding, something like _Oh, Marianne,_ and she is being pulled close into his side.  He tells her that these things take time, and she thinks that time _has_ passed.  Too much of it.  He tells her that there is nothing wrong with her, and it is like a knife through her.

“You cannot know that,” she tells him, and he looks down at her and frowns.  Tells her that she is young and healthy, and she can only shake her head and _hate_ herself for a dark moment, then another.

_He will chase all the darkness away once she allows sleep to come to her in his arms.  She knows it. But for now she clings to it, because she wants to hate something, and she is as good a target as any, she supposes._

“You cannot know,” she insists.  “Fevers—fevers take things from people all the time.  Sight, hearing, their legs.  What if—” and he squeezes her tighter than she thinks he truly means to and shushes her.

 _No._  He says no, and she thinks he must love her a great deal to be willing to battle the glaring truth for her.

All she can do is bury her face tight against his shoulder and fight away bitter tears.  _Why must she always weep?_   She finds words instead, and they hurt worse than sobs. 

“If I have taken your children from you for the sake of—of _John Willoughby—_ ”  She looks up; meets his eyes, startled by her voice, because it is raspy and breaking.  She shakes her head.  “I will never forgive myself.” 

And she thinks it all very tragic.  So very poetic.  Colonel Brandon, and his horrible misfortune to love a girl who loved another; a girl who spent all of her love foolishly and can now never give him anything in return.

The Marianne of only a few years ago would have _swooned._

Now, she only weeps.  Or fights very hard against it.

He does hold her then, and she lets him.  He pulls her tight against his chest, and…and she thinks she has frightened him.  He seems determined to cleave her to him, as though afraid she will run away, or do something equally foolish.

_She will not.  It would only hurt him._

And it is exactly as she thought.  Sleep comes for her, and Colonel Brandon remains awake and vigilant, trying to keep all the darkness at bay. 

~

He is careful, from that night on.

She thinks he is counting. 

Counting her days, counting till she will bleed, and she wishes she could know shame, or embarrassment for it.

She only knows a small hint of bitterness, and a little sorrow.

Her blood still comes, and she _knows_ he is counting, because whatever he might be doing, hunting, or business, or seeing to his tenants, it ceases the day she begins to bleed, and then he is only hers—her comfort and warmth—until her blood ceases and she is well again. 

Perhaps…perhaps he thinks to distract her.  He often brings her some new thing to divert her attention.  A new book, a new duet, a new place on Delaford’s estate to see. 

Sometimes he apologizes for being so dull, as though he thinks she has grown bored of Devonshire, of Delaford, of _him._   And sometimes, perhaps, the quiet of the country is a little dull, but Colonel Brandon is not.  He is only kind and steady, and she loves him for it. 

Other times he brings the hounds into the house again, and they make her laugh. 

Until she remembers that he loves them _not quite_ as he would love his own children. 

Then they make her sad.

Nevertheless, the hounds often join them, and the one that has been devoted to her since the day she woke as mistress of Delaford often sleeps curled up on the foot of their bed, keeping their feet warm.

 _Loyal creatures._

But really, nothing much else changes.  They still take tea together, and she still rearranges the library, and he still smiles at her and tells her she is lovely.

And she still thinks she might love him. Maybe.  She would know better if she knew what love actually felt like. 

And they are happy.  And she is a little sad.  Sometimes. When she thinks that the house is too quiet, or when the Colonel smiles at the boy who accidentally shot him last year and who has now become something of a favorite of his.

And Elinor…Elinor swells with child once more. 

And she does not tell Marianne. 

They are all at Barton Park, and Sir John is nearly catatonicwith giggles, and then Mrs. Jennings smiles and coos at Elinor, and tells her that she will be much too busy for such outings very soon, with the little one on the way.

_Only Mrs. Jennings would say such a thing in company._

But Marianne sucks in a sharp breath, and Mrs. Jennings is saying something to her, something about how she will surely have to help her sister prepare, for half a year will pass very quickly and then—and then there will be a new baby to be cared for.

_And Elinor did not tell her._

She meets her sister’s guilty eyes across the table, and they are both frowning at one another, questions and answers passing between them, unbeknownst to those around them. 

How…?  _Why?_

There was a time when they told each other everything.

And Marianne lies.  Marianne smiles and says yes, of course she will help her sister, and is it not the most wonderful news?  She had rejoiced so to hear it. 

Because she knows.  _She knows._

She knows that Elinor knows.  Elinor has always seen through her so well, _of course_ her sister can see that something is not right. Marianne is only surprised she cannot see right through her skin, into where the fever has scarred her and stolen away any children she might have given her husband. 

She knows Elinor has kept this thing from her only because she thought to spare her the pain for a while. 

And it cuts Marianne to the bone, but she _understands._

The Colonel brushes her hair that night.  He does not leave her side when they retire for the evening, and as soon as she emerges in her nightdress, he has her brush in hand and sits her down at the edge of the bed to run it through her hair first in short strokes, to ease the tangles, then long, soothing ones to ease  _her._  

And she marvels that she does not even need to say a word.  He just _knows._

He is slow with her that night.  Brushes her hair, then kisses her throat, then finds her temple with his nose and breathes her deep.  Then kisses her again.

Minutes fade into an hour, then more, and she smiles to think that once, she lived in dread of a single kiss pressed to her brow. 

_How things have changed, now._

When they are finished, she tells him she loves him, and he whispers the same to her.

And they sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a comment to let me know what you think!


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